Previous grants

Edge Fund has run ten funding rounds so far, with the first launched in October 2012. We have given out over £400,000 to grassroots groups organising for social and ecological change. They organise on issues such as anti-austerity, feminism, environmentalism, anti-racism and much more! During the funding process, our members and the groups applying for grants prioritise who should receive the money. We don't just redistribute money - we redistribute power!

All groups that we've given grants are listed below, starting with the most recent round.

Round 10

Abortion Access Campaign West, Ireland, £3000.

AACW grew from the nucleus of activists who fought to have the 8th amendment removed, and ultimately defeated the rump of the old guard in May 2018. However they recognised that victory was not sufficient to ensure appropriate, accessible service delivery. They wish to normalise all reproductive rights and services in Ireland, with a focus on the most disadvantaged and oppressed women – including those from the Traveler community, asylum seekers and refugees, those living in rural poverty and isolation and those relying on benefits and low wages. The Irish health system is tiered and access to services requires payment at the point of contact, plus travel to sites of service delivery.Activist Transport Collective, Sheffield, £500.

The Activist Transport Collective (ATC) works with and is composed of members of a wide range of campaign and action groups. They facilitate self-organised, affordable mass transport for radical community groups.

African Rainbow Family is run horizontally by LGBTIQ people seeking aslyum and refugees with lived experiences of persecution based on their sexuality, gender identities, religion, race, ethnicity, disability and have experienced the most horrendous violence in their countries of origin. They campaign against social injustice and challenge any UK immigration mistreatment of LGBT asylum seekers’ application process, as well as influencing government policies, campaigning on individual member’s asylum cases, offering practical support, organising rallies and other activities.

Beyond Bars, £500.

Beyond Bars are queer and trans prison abolitionists who send books and other educational materials to LGBTQAI+ people who are incarcerated in prisons, young offenders, and detention centres, as a way of providing practical support to those inside. They also support abolitionist work - particularly against prison expansion - and seek to promote abolitionist politics within the queer and trans communities.Black Triangle Campaign, £500.

Black Triangle Campaign is run by and for disabled people and campaigns against government welfare reform, work capability assessments, compulsory workfare, privatisation of the welfare state and all disability cuts. They organise and take part in demonstrations and petitions as well working with doctors to put forward motions to the British Medical Association and pursuing legal avenues to challenge welfare reform and protect disabled people. They fight the myths about welfare claimants being malingerers.

Brighton & Hove Black Women's Group, £500.

Brighton & Hove Black Women's Group work to ensure Black women’s needs are heard and met. We also work on issues for Black men as Black women are still oppressed if Black men are oppressed. We believe that those who feel it know it. No one would accept a men’s organisation leading on women’s projects or heterosexuals leading on LGBT work but white privilege allows this racist practice. We are developing networks with other Black people to take back control of developing projects to meet our needs. (*‘Black’ includes people of African, Bangladeshi, Caribbean, Chinese, Indian, Middle Eastern and Pakistani origins.)

The Glasgow section of the national Disabled People Against Cuts campaign. Founded and led by disabled people to raise awareness of the impact of government cuts on disabled people, and to challenge government policy on disability which is eroding the human rights of disabled people in the UK.

DPAC Norfolk, £750.

DPAC Norfolk will use this grant to establish a UK wide network of individuals and organisations dedicated to scrapping UC. This will be a national social movement which will unite in action all those who want to campaign to stop and scrap UC based on experiences of DPAC nationally and DPAC Norfolk locally.

Ffena - Black Women Living with HIV, £500.

Ffena is a collective of Black women living with HIV, headquartered in London but with representation in 12 UK locations. Our community based project work is led by ourselves, users of services, and we work to challenge the determinants of health: social conditions, food/fuel poverty, immigration issues, poor housing, benefit issues, marginalisation, lifestyle, diet and exercise. We work through empowerment - By building social capital, empowerment, knowledge and the ability to challenge established oppressive systems. Black women are the group that is most heavily impacted by HIV but our voices are historically least heard. Our group came about through strong Black women challenging a Euro-centric paternalistic medical profession making decisions on us without consultation. Our watchwords are: ‘No decisions about us Without us’.

Focus E15, London, £1500.

Focus E15 Campaign was started by young mothers in a supported hostel (Focus E15 hostel in Stratford, London E15) who said No! to being sent out of London for housing and joined forces with individuals and groups to form a campaign to challenge Newham Labour council about this policy of social cleansing. We do this work because housing is a human right and we cannot sit idly by and witness the appalling way people are being treated. We realise that while addressing local issues, we come up against the bigger picture, of a capitalist society in times of austerity. We realise that we need ultimately to change the system and to do that we need a mass movement. We want to be part of raising our collective consciousness.

Foil Vedanta, UK Wide £3000.

An independent grassroots solidarity organization focused primarily on the FTSE 250 British-Indian mining giant Vedanta Resources PLC. Foil Vedanta targets the company in London where it is registered, as well as linking with people’s movements where Vedanta is destroying lives and devastating the land in India, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Zambia, Liberia, South Africa and elsewhere.

Friends of Detainees, UK Wide, £3000.

Friends of Detainees work hard to end the use of immigration detention in the UK. They believe that asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants coming to the UK for safety should not be detained for administrative convenience which in turn causes them mental torture and many more problems.

Fuel Poverty Action’s (FPA) work focuses on the intersection of social justice and climate change. Fuel poverty emerged from free-market capitalism, which has enabled an energy oligopoly of suppliers to behave like a cartel, inching up prices in concert year-on-year. People on low incomes pay most. The Big Six and fossil fuel companies (subsidized £5.9 billion a year and given a huge 32% tax-break in 2013 by the Con-Dems) have shown that power is too important to be controlled by private interests. We need locally sourced publicly run renewable energy companies that are accountable to us. FPA helped set up Switched on London (a community energy for London campaign) and campaign for fairer prices from existing suppliers. Genesis Residents, £500.

Genesis Residents are trying to build an independent tenant/shared owner/leaseholder organisation to fight for access to housing. We build through meetings in which residents can raise issues, mobilising against Notting Hill Genesis (NHG).We have been successful in obtaining a stop on the sale of social rent homes of NHG and forcing NHG to disclose Fire Risk Assessments (FRA) - NHG had previously refused to allow tenants to see the FRA on their blocks. Our political demand is for the right to housing, meaning that everyone is entitled to housing which meets their needs.

Glasgow Autonomous Space, Glasgow, Scotland, £750.

GAS is a non-hierarchical collective that creates and holds space for groups to direct their own movements. They have secured a 5-year lease in a large industrial unit with the intention to build a multi-purpose space. People from different backgrounds come together to complete the physical work, learn new skills and develop a real sense of belonging. GAS intends to have an info-shop, a cooking space, a wood-workshop, and a safe exercising space for self-defence. GAS aims to be accessible, child-friendly, warm, and multilingual. They believe that people with lived-experience of oppression should lead their work. They ensure that groups work together to make consensus decisions about what the space is used for.

Housing Association Residents Action, £500.

Housing Association Residents Action (HARA) is an independent organisation for all residents of housing associations – tenants, shared owners and leaseholders. The management of Housing Associations across the UK are making very poor decisions and becoming more and more commercial. We are organising to defend current residents against evictions, rent increases, unfair service charges, and unmaintained homes. We campaign to keep affordable social housing in the social housing sector, rather than being sold off to private buyers. We also fight for the retention of the core principle of the housing association movement – that everyone has a right to decent housing.

Joint Enterprise:Not Guilty by Association, £500.

Joint Enterprise is a legal abuse of power. Research has concluded it to be an area of law that is racist and discriminatory towards the working class. They have already had a breakthrough at the Supreme Court but feel there is still a significant amount of work to do in terms of helping those convicted before the Supreme Court acknowledged the law had been misinterpreted for over 30 years. And to continue to chip away at the CPS’s unfair use of JE.

Kingsley Burrell Campaign, £3000.

Eight years ago, what is now known as Justice for Kingsley Burrell campaign began to organize. It started out as raising awareness of deaths in police custody, whose mission was to highlight police brutality and to secure justice pertaining to the four West Midlands officers involved in Kingsley’s death. Our intention from the very beginning was to connect Black people from all over the UK who have shared experiences, lobby Members of Parliament and raise our concerns collectively for justice to be served.In the years since. We’ve actively campaigned and committed to direct action to build local and national publicity in order to draw attention to injustices surrounding this case. We’ve accomplished a lot of publicity in eight years, though we have a long way to go securing justice.

Kushti Bok campaigns against prejudice towards the GTR community in Dorset. Kushti Bok has challenged local media, with some success gained, leading to more balanced reporting regarding GTR. This is an ongoing problem and the press (in print and online) needs to be constantly monitored.

Kilburn Unemployed Workers Group, London, £500.

Group set up three years ago for unemployed workers to self-organise around issues affecting benefit claimants. They educate people on a range of rights, through talking with people, leaflets and public workshops.

Leeds Unity Centre, £500.

We operate a safe and friendly, volunteer-run, support Centre for asylum seekers, refugees and undocumented migrants. We provide practical and emotional support and solidarity to refugees, asylum seekers and other migrants in West Yorkshire.

LGBT Unity, Scotland, £500.

LGBT Unity work to end detention, deportation, destitution, lack of access to resources and the discriminatory and racist practises of the UK immigration system. The Home Office and their racist, sexist, homophobic immigration controls serve to alienate people and keep us fighting in a state of isolation. Their group is the only place in Scotland where the space is held solely for LGBTQ asylum seekers and allies to come together in safety and care to share experiences, support, strategies and ideas for the future.

Manchester Disabled People Against Cuts. £3000.

Manchester DPAC are disabled people self defined under the Social Model of Disability thus encompassing service users and neurodivergent people. We protest, occupy, do direct action and engage in radical independent advocacy (statutory advocates we have found to be often useless) so when a disabled person has to deal with state agencies they are not alone and have a witness who can also intervene with knowledge of the law, advice, and the rights of disabled people.

Misson Springs, £1500.

Misson Springs are an anti-fracking camp in North Nottinghamshire. By supporting a constant presence at the site gates, we are demonstrating to fracking companies that they have not been accepted by the local community or have any degree of social licence to operate.

Montreal Square Residents Association, £1500.

On the 29th of January 2018 our landlord Cambridge Housing Society announced they had plans to demolish our homes and community to build shared ownership flats which would increase the revenue for this site by robbing them of our gardens, driveways and green open space. This land has been land for social housing since 1928 and that is the way they want it to stay. Some residents have lived here for over 40 years and felt this was wrong. They called for a residents meeting and the vast majority turned up and agreed they would try and fight this to save their community. They have the backing of our local MP but the vulture capitalists running the housing association that their homes belong to refuse to listen to them.

Positively UK, Boston, £1400.

Positively UK are EU nationals living in Boston, a port town on the east coast of England where latent hostility toward old and new migrant arrivals has burst into the open since the Brexit vote, where 76% of local people voted to leave the EU. They came together to counter EDL and Britain First marches, and increasing racist and xenophobic attacks. They aim to resist discrimination by peaceful means, like rallies, demos and solidarity with people in Boston who stand against the latest attacks on the migrant community. Their activities include, organising marches; highlighting government non-compliance with impact assessments on immigration policy; conducting direct action against council offices; and working to bridge the divide in Boston, which they hope will be replicated in other UK cities.

Pride in Sheffield, Yorkshire. £500

Pride in Sheffield are creating a community orientated event, to raise awareness and build solidarity, specifically around breaches of human rights in Britain and worldwide (including those in Chechnya and the detention of queer migrants in the UK. They stand against homophobia and transphobia, and against the capitalist system which allows prejudice to flourish.

Quiet Riot, Manchester,£1500

Quiet Riot is a disabled people led group. They do not use speech for communication, but they have a great deal to say. They are all special school survivors and require physical support and emotional support when pointing and typing. Some disabled people use the term neuro diverse. They have been meeting and campaigning as a group for the Right to Communication in general and their right to use Facilitated Communication (FC) in particular.

Shoal Collective, £500.

Underpinning Shoal’s work is the desire to foster grassroots resistance to capitalism, colonialism and white supremacy. This project focuses on food and land justice in the UK. Racial inequalities in these areas are related to economic and social inequalities. This Shoal project, to be carried out in 2019, will produce a number of journalistic articles. They will focus on different areas including profiling UK projects led by people of colour (POC). The project will challenge stereotypes of POC in relation to food production and be a celebration of POC who are demonstrating different ways of living.

A community of British South Asian women who connect through common experiences and interests, to foster a safe environment to share and support one another in navigating the highs and lows of sometimes conflicting and confusing cultural expectations and experiences. The Black Feminist Movement has grown phenomenally and they wish to build a similar movement amongst South Asians. This is particularly important as one of the largest ethnic groups in the UK. The aim is to break down the structures that deter South Asian women from discussing uncomfortable realities, in turn transforming our own communities.Unity Sisters, Glasgow, £1000.

Unity Sisters is a group of women going through the asylum system. They get together to create safe spaces for women to share their stories and experiences about the immigration system, and other issues such as domestic abuse, health inequalities, forced destitution, access to education, housing, and access to childcare. These issues form part of a xenophobic, racist and sexist system of oppression, which the group aims to help dismantle through their work. With regular meetings, film screenings, and outings, the group provides spaces for emotional support, as well as practical solidarity.

Unis Resist Border Controls, UK Wide£1500.

Unis Resist Border Controls are a migrant-led movement working to oppose the encroachment of the militarised border and the hostile environment policy into UK universities. We work from universities because that is where we are, but we are opposed to setting university students and staff apart as somehow worthier than other migrants; rather, we believe in freedom of movement for all students, workers, immigrants, travellers, and refugees, and we want to build solidarity among these groups. We believe that migrants should be not only welcomed but also heard, and we are committed to publicising the words of precarious migrants rather than those who might speak for us.

Weald Action Group, £1500Weald Action Group aim to strategise, skill-share and train, gather experts to form skilled working groups, raising awareness of acidisation (fracking’s little sister!), present and meet on focused topics relevant to the Weald and encourage inter-group networking.

Round 9

Not Guilty By Association, Manchester (£3000)

The group exists to organise to bring about political pressure from below, in order to end the racist use of joint enterprise (JE) in Manchester. We believe that JE has been proven to be racist in its application and therefore call for it to be scrapped or radically transformed. We do not have faith in the criminal appeals process and therefore must apply political pressure. We also recognise that JE often rests on the use of the ‘gang’ label, which research (including by two of our members, academics at Manchester Met Uni) has demonstrated to be a racialised construct. While these changes must obviously take place at a national level, we act to apply pressure and built momentum locally.Disabled People Against Cuts, UK Wide (£1500)

Disabled People Against Cuts (DPAC) is a campaign founded and led by disabled people to raise awareness of the impact of government cuts on disabled people and to challenge government policy on disability which has decimated the human rights of disabled people in the UK. The campaign was set up in October 2010 to challenge the cuts and the threat to disabled people’s rights and ultimately lives. DPAC was founded on core values including the social model of disability and the principle of rights not charity. Longer term we seek real systemic change so that disabled people are fully included in society.

Community Action on Prison Expansion is a prison abolitionist group. Their work is motivated by the reality that the prison system is the cornerstone of the systemic oppression enacted by the British State and the prison industrial complex. This system is pervasive; from prisons themselves, to immigration removal centres, to police repression, to the surveillance of our daily lives. What’s more, the state and the private companies with whom they work are profiting from the incarceration of marginalized communities through the privatization of prisons, and the menial labour undertaken for private companies by prisoners. This system harms – and kills – marginalized communities. Working class, people of colour, and trans people are specifically targeted by the prison industrial complex; this can be seen in the demographics of those incarcerated.

Open Lavs is a practical, online tool for finding non-binary (gender neutral) loos across the UK. It means that trans and non-binary people can easily find out where their custom is welcome so they can eat, drink, work, and play. Open Lavs will also champion best practice and use a positive approach to pressure other businesses and organisations to follow suit and create non-binary bathrooms by changing their policies and spaces.

Leftist, Queer politics sit at the heart of Open Lavs and we understand that nobody lives single issues lives. That’s why our map provides crucial information on disability access. Our approach is also informed by lived experience and thelatest researchinto what makes a toilet safe and accessible for everyone. This work benefits those with non-binary identities or people whose identities are often misread, such as trans men or women in the early stages of a transition.London Coalition Against Poverty (£1500)

London Coalition Against Poverty (LCAP) organise and campaign against the unjust housing system and the root causes of poverty in our communities. Many of our members are homeless migrant families – living in temporary accommodation or severely overcrowded housing. As many members do not have English as their first language, accessing their basic rights is very difficult. Together at our regular meetings, where we have translation and childcare to make them as accessible as possible, we share information about our rights, help each other to plan steps on our cases, provide moral support for each other, and organise buddies to visit the housing office together as well as campaigns and direct actions. These tactics have proved successful in winning better housing for members.

Learning Disability Group of Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire are an equality rights organisation, user led and committed to changing hearts and minds around what they can achieve. People with disabilities have been denied their rights to make decisions, take risks and contribute to a more equal society. They have been patronised and told what is best for them, at the whim of social policies decided by others. They see their role as a group who educate, inform and apply pressure for change.Land Justice Network, UK Wide (£1500)

They are a broad network made up of individuals and representatives from other networks including the Land Workers Alliance, the Radical Housing Network and the Community Food Growers Network. They intend to use the space that Brexit is creating to talk about farming subsidies which dictate the way that our countryside is managed and create opportunities for policy change. Disabled People Against Cuts Glasgow (£1500)

The Glasgow section of the national Disabled People Against Cuts campaign. Founded and led by disabled people to raise awareness of the impact of government cuts on disabled people, and to challenge government policy on disability which is eroding the human rights of disabled people in the UK.

The Common House actively works to replace capitalism, white supremacy and patriarchy with egalitarian social relations. They are home to groups that campaign and organise against fascism and capitalism (Plan C), for radical gender equality (Feminist Fightback), against heteronormativity and for LGBTQ rights (Queerspace East), against fuel poverty and for local community-owned energy production (Fuel Poverty Action), and much more. As well as enabling this work, the Common House is itself horizontally organised, which means they also stand as an example of the world they are working towards.SOAS Detainee Support, London (£1500)

Continuing their campaign for abolition of immigration detention, they strive to create strong communities of resistance that support those on the fringes of our society. They are fighting for an end to immigration detention and more presently, against the mistreatment of detained migrants. They are a grassroots, small organisation, engaged in supporting those detained, and campaigning for the end of detention.

Rising Up are focused on system change through non-violent uprising (knowing that is ridiculously ambitious!). They believe in participatory democracy and trying out methods like sortition. They deliberately don’t identify with a particular political orientation (e.g. anarchist or socialist) because they believe in creating the conditions for genuine dialogue / participation rather than imposing pre-determined models. Their methods are informed by research and evidence including the importance of civil disobedience, and direct action. They have a set of 10 Principles and Values that guide us including, for example, mitigating for power, their efforts to embody a regenerative culture and focusing their mission on that which is necessary (rather than what feels possible).

Tower Blocks UK are concerned that the design and construction of many tower blocks and their refurbishments pose serious risks. We have seen at Grenfell Tower that tenants’ voices are ignored when these risks are pointed out. Disasters in Ronan Point, Lakanal House and Grenfell Tower have clearly shown that the building regulations are inadequate and that people are living in unsafe buildings. They set up this project to empower residents by providing open access to a range of resources and support. They are seeking to strengthen the tenants voice particularly when they are raising concerns with their landlords and we are seeking to support tenants and residents to be able to campaign to ensure that these national issues are not once again ignored. They are creating a range of resources eg a health and safety checklist, available in many formats including an app, which enables residents to check their blocks and make a report to their landlord/solicitor. They are also seeking to inform tower block owners, for example, by creating a guide to potential risks for local councilors.

Sandwell Youth in Action (£3000)

Sandwell Youth in Action (SYIA) has carried out a survey in March 2018 with 56 women, all of whom came for help to fight for their children and has found a 40% rise in the number of children that are separated from their parents since 20014. Evidences collected show that there was a push to increase adoption in the region to punish low-income women, who are increasingly losing their children due to poverty especially among women of colour and refugees, which the group calls “the unjust separation of children from their mothers”. Charges of neglect are used to punish, especially single-mother families, for their unbearably low incomes. The fundamental relationship between mother and child is dismissed as irrelevant to a child’s wellbeing and development, and the trauma of separation, and its lifelong consequences, are ignored. Mothers who are victims of domestic violence are refused help, blamed for ‘failing to protect’ their children, and punished with their removal. This project is all about social justice through identity work. We are a radicalcampaign group which would like to petition for the ‘adoption policy’ to be revisited to reduce the number of children in care. We will collect and gather signatures from our constituencies in order topresent a report at the House of Commons between 30 October 2018 and January 2019. The group believes that most of these unjust removals of children from their mothers under the pretext of neglect and abuse could be better dealt with through family support and responses to poverty and deprivation.

Unity Sisters is a group of women going through the asylum system. They get together to create safe spaces for women to share their stories and experiences about the immigration system, and other issues such as domestic abuse, health inequalities, forced destitution, access to education, housing, and access to childcare. These issues form part of a xenophobic, racist and sexist system of oppression, which the group aims to help dismantle through their work. With regular meetings, film screenings, and outings, the group provides spaces for emotional support, as well as practical solidarity.

Just Books – Belfast Solidarity Centre needs new premises to continue our work providing people at the receiving end of intersecting oppressions the resources to resist – and to ultimately overthrow capitalism and the state. We were open in Berry Street in Belfast city centre for two years (until the end of our lease in March) with a radical bookshop (Just Books), a growing radical library (now with over 4,500 titles), a workers’ and claimants solidarity drop-in, labour and community education initiative (Just Learning), badge making and t-shirt and sticker printing for campaigns, and a meeting space for groups involved in struggles against oppression.

Liverpool Social Centre Collective runs Next to Nowhere which is a radical social centre created in, and run by activists from the Merseyside area as part of efforts to bring about a fair, free and sustainable society - one without hierarchy, discrimination, or the exploitation of people, animals and the planet for profit. We believe this is only possible through the direct action of ordinary people against capitalism & the state. The centre exists to support anyone acting to defend themselves and their communities against attacks by business and government, locally and globally, and those acting in solidarity with them, through direct action, campaign work, education, and sharing skills and resources. Social centre volunteers come from a range of backgrounds - community activism, youth work, animal rights, anti-war, environmentalism, feminism and anarchism - and our work reflects this.Positively UK, Boston (£1480)

Positively UK are EU nationals living in Boston, a port town on the east coast of England where latent hostility toward old and new migrant arrivals has burst into the open since the Brexit vote, where 76% of local people voted to leave the EU. They came together to counter EDL and Britain First marches, and increasing racist and xenophobic attacks. They aim to resist discrimination by peaceful means, like rallies, demos and solidarity with people in Boston who stand against the latest attacks on the migrant community. Their activities include, organising marches; highlighting government non-compliance with impact assessments on immigration policy; conducting direct action against council offices; and working to bridge the divide in Boston, which they hope will be replicated in other UK cities.

Kushti Bok campaigns against prejudice towards the GTR community in Dorset. Kushti Bok has challenged local media, with some success gained, leading to more balanced reporting regarding GTR. This is an ongoing problem and the press (in print and online) needs to be constantly monitored.

Friends of Detainees, UK wide (£1000)

Friends of Detainees work hard to end the use of immigration detention in the UK. They believe that asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants coming to the UK for safety should not be detained for administrative convenience which in turn causes them mental torture and many more problems.

The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE) provides since 1994 a unique collectively run political space in Edinburgh. Based around principles of libertarian-communism, antifascism and anarchism ACE since its inception has supported and initiated myriads of projects based on grassroots organizing, non-authoritarian education and direct action. The ACE collective is a membership group.

African Rainbow Family is run horizontally by its 60 LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees members with lived experiences of one form of persecution to the other based on their sexuality, gender identities, religion, race, ethnicity, disability and have experienced most horrendous violence in their countries of origin. They campaign against social injustice and challenge any UK immigration mistreatment of LGBT asylum seekers’ application process, as well as influencing government policies, campaigning on individual member’s asylum cases, offering practical support, organising rallies and other activities.

Peavody Family Voice was set up following an angry Peabody tenants’ consultation meeting – we want to turn this into effective political action. PFV is not a Tenants and Residents Association, since TRAs already exist and have failed to address the issues mentioned above. They use the community organising model of political organising, which devotes as much attention to organising and empowering people as to protest.

Ubuntu women’s night shelter will be the first dedicated shelter in the UK that provides short term accommodation for women with no recourse to public funds. Importantly, the shelter will be run and managed by persons with lived experience of Destitution, Asylum and Migration. Their collective has more than ten years of shared experience in supporting destitute Asylum seekers.

Sister Supporter began as a group of local residents who were tired of witnessing this harassment every day. Our approach consists of engaging with the community in a positive way and collecting statements from residents, clinic users and staff in order to look at what can be done on a local level. In April 2018 we got the UK’s first ever ’safe zone’ outside an abortion clinic. Unfortunately this is a national problem and we need a lasting, nationwide solution. We are working to end the imbalance of rights, the misogyny displayed by the government and police and to challenge the lack of legislation to protect clinic users. No other healthcare service is targeted in this way – we believe that had it been an issue that affected more men then it wouldn’t have been allowed to continue for so long.

The Campaign to Protect Pont Valley is a grass-roots campaign combining people living in an area affected by opencast and others who joined us to fight against it. After we were ignored in our opposition to Banks Groups’ new opencast in Pont Valley we invited activists, with a direct-action strategy, to join us in January 2018.

A group of homelessness sector workers & LGBTIQ+ activists with lived experiences of the issues their community faces. They recognise that current services are not adequate for their community. They are organising for safe, independent, and accessible homeless services for LGBTIQ+ people.

T.O.R.C.H. collective is a group of musicians, artists, organizers, and activists based in Dublin. Our goal is to engage the DIY music, art, and activism community in workshops and projects that promote healthy relationships, consent, sexual health, and community accountability. They hope to challenge beliefs and actions that enable gender-based violence, sexual assault, misogyny, and homophobia in our community. They aim to do this through continuous education, visibility of a peer support network, and promoting community accountability through the development of guidelines for which venues, promoters, bands, and gig-goers will be encouraged to adopt.

Berkshire Anti Fascists' primary aim is to counter fascism in the UK. Their approach is two-fold: oppose fascism in the streets, and also support their local community through fund-raising, because stronger communities are the ultimate prevention against fascism. They are a very active group, and try to attend every action to bolster numbers. They are a non-hierarchical group that runs on communist and anarchist principles, but specific political ideology is not dictated, as they are more interested in action than political philosophy.Fuel Poverty Action, UK Wide (£500)

Fuel Poverty Action’s (FPA) work focuses on the intersection of social justice and climate change. Fuel poverty emerged from free-market capitalism, which has enabled an energy oligopoly of suppliers to behave like a cartel, inching up prices in concert year-on-year. People on low incomes pay most. The Big Six and fossil fuel companies (subsidized £5.9 billion a year and given a huge 32% tax-break in 2013 by the Con-Dems) have shown that power is too important to be controlled by private interests. We need locally sourced publicly run renewable energy companies that are accountable to us. FPA helped set up Switched on London (a community energy for London campaign) and campaign for fairer prices from existing suppliers.

Leeds Anti-Fascist Network is a group of people working together to create stronger anti-racist communities in Leeds. They aim to organise in our local areas of Leeds to build a network capable of confronting far-right and racist activity in Leeds. This is based around information and skill sharing events, meeting regularly in different areas of Leeds. Recently there has been increased far-right activity and mobilisations in Leeds and around the country - by building a strong network we aim to stop them from taking our streets. We want our communities to feel safe for all. The far-right and the government want to divide us based on our differences. We believe that job insecurity, bad housing, cuts to public services are policies to ensure the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. We have to unite against this and stop them spreading racist lies. Frack Free Upton (£500)

Frack Free Upton's aim is to stop fracking in Upton, Cheshire and the rest of the UK. Fracking is being forced on communities who do not want it by the current UK government. They aim to increase awareness of the dangers of fracking, both to people in Cheshire and to the people who can influence decisions – both locally and nationally. Our campaign in Upton has been successful so far, Upton Community Protection camp was the first in the UK to occupy the actual drilling site.

Joint Enterprise is a legal abuse of power. Research has concluded it to be an area of law that is racist and discriminatory towards the working class. They have already had a breakthrough at the Supreme Court but feel there is still a significant amount of work to do in terms of helping those convicted before the Supreme Court acknowledged the law had been misinterpreted for over 30 years. And to continue to chip away at the CPS’s unfair use of JE.

The Scottish Farm Land Trust was set up in response to the radically unequal distribution of land ownership in Scotland, at a time when farm sizes are being consolidated as increasing numbers of farmers sell their land to bigger farmers. Farm labour is also becoming increasingly based around the contract model whereby farm labourers have very little control over the way that the business is run. They believe that land should be decomodified so that it is no longer used as a means of increasing wealth and the value of land is no longer driven up by speculation. They believe that land workers should have democratic control over their businesses and in decisions about land management.

Round 8

Friends of Detainees, Uk-Wide (£3000)

Friends of Detainees work hard to end the use of immigration detention in the UK. They believe that asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants coming to the UK for safety should not be detained for administrative convenience which in turn causes them mental torture and many more problems.

African Rainbow Family is run horizontally by its 60 LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees members with lived experiences of one form of persecution to the other based on their sexuality, gender identities, religion, race, ethnicity, disability and have experienced most horrendous violence in their countries of origin. They campaign against social injustice and challenge any UK immigration mistreatment of LGBT asylum seekers’ application process, as well as influencing government policies, campaigning on individual member’s asylum cases, offering practical support, organising rallies and other activities.

Disabled Survivors Unite is a user-led organisation, the four co-founders are disabled and have survived something in their lives, established to create change for disabled survivors of abuse and sexual violence. They are working to change this by raising awareness and improving access to services for disabled people by offering consultations, advice, and training. They also help disabled survivors to find accessible support.

Smash IPP is a collective of anarchists and anti-authoritarians, who have chosen to stand against “Imprisonment for Public Protection”. They aim to raise awareness of IPP and work towards the release of all persons in prison who have passed their original sentence. IPP is indeterminate sentence for public protection; this allows the court to add time onto an existing prison sentence and therefore pushing back the release date indefinitely. The IPP sentence was abolished in 2012, however, this was what not done retrospectively. This left more than 5000 people in jail for a non-existing law with no date of release.

GAS is a non-hierarchical collective that creates and holds space for groups to direct their own movements. They have secured a 5-year lease in a large industrial unit with the intention to build a multi-purpose space. People from different backgrounds come together to complete the physical work, learn new skills and develop a real sense of belonging. GAS intends to have an info-shop, a cooking space, a wood-workshop, and a safe exercising space for self-defence. GAS aims to be accessible, child-friendly, warm, and multilingual. They believe that people with lived-experience of oppression should lead their work. They ensure that groups work together to make consensus decisions about what the space is used for.

The Glasgow section of the national Disabled People Against Cuts campaign. Founded and led by disabled people to raise awareness of the impact of government cuts on disabled people, and to challenge government policy on disability which is eroding the human rights of disabled people in the UK.

Living Rent Edinburgh seek to end the system where tenants are ripped off by extortionate rents and illegal letting agency fees, where many landlords and letting agencies can get away with not completing essential repairs, where homes are in a hardly liveable condition, where tenants face fear of eviction from their own homes.

Hand2Mouth, Northern England (1500)

A group of activists who are setting up advice hubs, doing workshops, and campaigning to support people facing universal credit.

The Galway Feminist Collective is a grassroots group of activists and artists which uses creative ways to explore, discuss and give visibility to feminist issues. They aim to include all communities, groups and individuals working to advance woman's rights in Galway and to challenge any barriers to participation based on gender, ethnicity, sexuality, ability or religion.

Black Triangle works to reverse the grave and systematic abuses of the fundamental human rights of sick and/or disabled people under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They work to challenge discrimination against disabled people, both by the State and in civil society. They seek to raise awareness among the wider population of these abuses and to educate people on the meaning of inclusion and equality using the social model of disability and the principles of the right to independent living.

They are a campaign group led by and for disabled and older people in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. They were originally formed to challenge cuts that are marginalising communities and targeting the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society. By providing information, and challenging the cuts they aim to help break the link between poverty and older and disabled people.

We Will Rise is a group of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and their allies who are campaigning for an end to the immigration detention system in Scotland, and the UK as a whole. Based in Glasgow, they campaign against not only the immigration system, but also the corporations that benefit from the detention industrial complex. We Will Rise has been part of a successful campaign to close the Dungavel Detention Centre, involving regular demonstrations, public meetings skillshares and visits to detainees. They are now heavily involved in organising against the proposed new centre, in Paisley, near Glasgow Airport.

Leeds Unity Centre provide practical support and advocacy for asylum seekers required to report by the Home Office in Yorkshire. They stand against the process of reporting and detention for vulnerable people who are asking for asylum. They also empower clients by giving them skills to assist them in the eventuality of a detention.

The Ubele Initiative is an African Diaspora social action focused organisation. Their main activities have focused on co-designing local grassroots strategies to create practical solutions in relation to the ownership of community buildings within the African heritage community. They also undertake wider community engagement, empowerment, campaigning and social change activities. Their underlying aims are to build on intergenerational leadership and social action processes in order to identify and address some of our most pressing social, economic and political concerns that their community faces.

Unity Sisters is a group of women going through the asylum system. They get together to create safe spaces for women to share their stories and experiences about the immigration system, and other issues such as domestic abuse, health inequalities, forced destitution, access to education, housing, and access to childcare. These issues form part of a xenophobic, racist and sexist system of oppression, which the group aims to help dismantle through their work. With regular meetings, film screenings, and outings, the group provides spaces for emotional support, as well as practical solidarity.

‘You Should see the Other Guy’ are an all female political theatre company made up of housing activists with Focus E15 and Radical Housing Network as well as people who have experienced homelessness. They aim to create radical work which directly challenges the causes and effects regeneration and social cleansing in London.

A Campaign for equal access to healthcare for all, and against the charging of migrant communities for healthcare. They believe that no one should be afraid to go to the doctor, either because they can’t pay or might be punished, and that doctors should not have to police the people they treat.

A group of homelessness sector workers & LGBTIQ+ activists with lived experiences of the issues their community faces. They recognise that current services are not adequate for their community. They are organising for safe, independent, and accessible homeless services for LGBTIQ+ people.

Positively UK–Polish, Boston (1480)

Positively UK are EU nationals living in Boston, a port town on the east coast of England where latent hostility toward old and new migrant arrivals has burst into the open since the Brexit vote, where 76% of local people voted to leave the EU. They came together to counter EDL and Britain First marches, and increasing racist and xenophobic attacks. They aim to resist discrimination by peaceful means, like rallies, demos and solidarity with people in Boston who stand against the latest attacks on the migrant community. Their activities include, organising marches; highlighting government non-compliance with impact assessments on immigration policy; conducting direct action against council offices; and working to bridge the divide in Boston, which they hope will be replicated in other UK cities.

A community of British South Asian women who connect through common experiences and interests, to foster a safe environment to share and support one another in navigating the highs and lows of sometimes conflicting and confusing cultural expectations and experiences. The Black Feminist Movement has grown phenomenally and we wish to build a similar movement amongst South Asians. This is particularly important as one of the largest ethnic groups in the UK. The aim is to break down the structures that deter South Asian women from discussing uncomfortable realities, in turn transforming our own communities.

All About Me, Edinburgh (1000)

All About Me, Power to the People, and North Edinburgh Fights Back are campaigning to resist evictions due to the benefit cap. Young mothers hit by the Benefits Cap have come together to support each other and organise occupations and demonstrations against the injustices we are facing. Evicted from their homes due to drastic cuts to Housing Benefit caused by the Benefits Cap, the mums have linked up with local activists to insist our families' needs for a safe home must be met. They are taking on the Westminster Government and the local Council, to stop families ending up in sub-standard temporary accommodation.

A group of single parents, disabled people and young jobseekers, who have seen firsthand the harm and even destitution being caused in the name of ‘welfare reform’. They are angry about the popular characterization of ‘benefits as a lifestyle choice’ and about politicians who seem happy to talk about helping ‘hard working families’ but ignore the needs and rights of those in most need. They want to challenge all this, and have come together make a film about their experiences of welfare reform.

A group of local activists, protecting the land and community of Kirby Misperton from Fracking, aiming to preventing this invasive, toxic industry from spreading across the UK. The group has initiated a campaign of peaceful protest, starting with setting up the Kirby Misperton Protection Camp to resist the first fracking site in North Yorkshire, and empower the community to take a stand.

The Global Majority Network is a coalition of black, brown and diaspora people, including migrants, LGBTQ+ people, Muslims and revolutionaries from different campaigning and community groups. They are committed to starting and supporting campaigns inspired by their direct experiences and solidarity among POC that honours their differences.

GMHA was founded by activists aware of growing housing-focussed movements in other UK cities and thought it time for co-ordinated action in Greater Manchester. They are creating a community of like-minded people with the knowledge and skills to campaign on housing issues.

Mixed Race Families Scotland (£750)

A group of people from minority ethnic/multiracial families in Scotland, who are challenging racism and racist practices on a grass roots level and supporting sufferers of injustice of our members through an online network. They are launching a campaign in 2018 (and onwards) called “Lets Face It” which challenges the social acceptance of Blackface for Halloween and other regional festival and cultural celebrations such as 'Up Helly Aa'.

Continuing their campaign for abolition of immigration detention, they strive to create strong communities of resistance that support those on the fringes of our society. They are fighting for an end to immigration detention and more presently, against the mistreatment of detained migrants. They are a grassroots, small organisation, engaged in supporting those detained, and campaigning for the end of detention.

They work to repurpose and subvert the ways in which these white supremacist symbols exist in our society with very little challenge. British colonial history affects everyone in this country every day and we believe that recognising, discussing and repurposing the support of dominant symbols can bring our society closer together. In the short-term they willl hold participatory discussion events around and about colonial symbols in London. In the medium-term, run creative actions to repurpose colonial symbols.While in the longer term work with educators to provide materials and run workshops on colonialism.

a group of citizens who are concerned about climate change, a global issue with environmental and social justice implications around the world. They work locally to reduce the impact that the area where we live and work is contributing to this global injustice. Currently they are doing this by focusing on divestment for the West Midlands Pension fund, the largest local government pension fund in the country, which has £393 million invested in the oil, coal and gas industries.

The extreme secrecy of the nuclear industry results in a loss of democratic accountability, openess and honesty which is an abuse of power. The campaign highlights the risks and dangers of transporting nuclear waste and proposes the safer alternative of on site above ground storage. They address these issues by raising awareness of all these issue amongst the general public and influencing political decision makers which will they hope lead to increased accountability and safety.

Round 7

On 15th of July 2017, the following grants were agreed for our seventh round:

BLMUK is a group of black activists who believe that Black lives matter. In Britain, there is a tendency to see racism as something that happens on the other side of the Atlantic. Through their work, they aim to challenge that view, and open up conversations about racism in Britain today. They strive to challenge the structural racism reproduced by the British state through community organising, education and peaceful direct action.

Friends of Detainees, UK-Wide (£3,000)

We are Friends of Detainees working hard to end the use of immigration detention in the UK. We believe that asylum seekers, refugees and immigrants coming to the UK for safety should not be detained for administrative convenience which in turn causes them mental torture and many more.

Living Rent Glasgow seek to end the system where tenants are ripped off by extortionate rents and illegal letting agency fees, where many landlords and letting agencies can get away with not completing essential repairs, where homes are in a hardly liveable condition, where tenants face fear of eviction from their own homes.

Black Triangle works to reverse the grave and systematic abuses of the fundamental human rights of sick and/or disabled people under the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. They work to challenge discrimination against disabled people, both by the State and in civil society. They seek to raise awareness among the wider population of these abuses and to educate people on the meaning of inclusion and equality using the social model of disability and the principles of the right to independent living.

African Rainbow Family is run horizontally by its 60 LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees members with lived experiences of one form of persecution to the other based on their sexuality, gender identities, religion, race, ethnicity, disability and have experienced most horrendous violence in their countries of origin. They campaign against social injustice and challenge any UK immigration mistreatment of LGBT asylum seekers’ application process, as well as influencing government policies, campaigning on individual member’s asylum cases, offering practical support, organising rallies and other activities.

Recovery in the Bin is a group of Mental Health Survivors and their supporters who are fed up with the way colonised ‘recovery’ is being used to discipline and control those who are trying to find a place in the world, to live as they wish, trying to deal with the very real mental distress they encounter on a daily basis.

Frack Free South Yorkshire work to oppose all forms of unconventional carbon based energy exploitation, supporting the aims and values of all those who work towards climate justice, and seek to undermine all carbon and nuclear based energy exploitation. They seek to prepare and educate communities, who will find themselves on the front line of the battle against fracking. And aim to act as a catalyst to empower local groups to form and agitate to ensure they form vocal and physical opposition to the fracking industry.

The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE) is a self-managed social resource centre. They’re open for groups or individuals to use who are trying to make a better society and improve their lives. ACE exists to support and encourage people to take more control of their lives. They believe in people co-operating as equals to create a shared world free from exploitation and work together in the spirit of mutual aid.

Leeds Unity Centre provide practical support and advocacy for asylum seekers required to report by the Home Office in Yorkshire. They stand against the process of reporting and detention for vulnerable people who are asking for asylum. They also empower clients by giving them skills to assist them in the eventuality of a detention.

London Campaign Against Policce and State Violence was founded to make the Metropolitan Police accountable to local communities for abuses of power and bring an end to its culture of brutality and racial profiling, including the racist use of Stop & Search powers. To work towards this aim, they offer help, support and solidarity to victims of police and state abuses of power; we provide advocacy support, Stop and Search workshops, advice on police complaints and solidarity and awareness-raising of issues around state racism and police violence.

SWOU are working to end state and societal violence against all sex workers, and to dismantle the structures of oppression through which many sex workers face compounded violence: such as transmisogyny, racism and xeno-racism, classism and homophobia. We resist these oppressions through community building and self-advocacy, and through working within wider movements of resistance.

Belfast Solidarity Centre aims to provide people with the resources to resist the intersecting oppressions which hold us down – and ultimately to overthrow capitalism and the State. We have been open in Belfast city centre for almost one year, with a radical bookshop (Just Books), extensive library, a workers’ and claimants’ drop-in resource centre, community education initiatives, radical film showings, and a meeting space for groups involved in the struggle against oppression.

LGBT Unity, Scotland (£1,500)

LGBT Unity work to end detention, deportation, destitution, lack of access to resources and the discriminatory and racist practises of the UK immigration system. The Home Office and their racist, sexist, homophobic immigration controls serve to alienate people and keep us fighting in a state of isolation. Their group is the only place in Scotland where the space is held solely for LGBTQ asylum seekers and allies to come together in safety and care to share experiences, support, strategies and ideas for the future.

Save Cressingham Gardens is a campaign to stop the demolition of their diverse community. They empower residents to manage and control their own neighbourghoods, and to gain independence from a council that is abusing its powers.

Movimiento Jaguar Despierto is an organisation that aims to create awareness and visualize the issues that affect indigenous communities, workers, displaced communities, women and migrant communities in Latin America and here in the UK. They use direct action, educational events, and campaigns in support of the Latin American community.

DPAC Glasgow is a campaign group of disabled people and supporters who oppose the unfair cuts to public services and welfare spending by both local and national governments. In addition to holding and attending rallies against the authorities, we also produce helpful information for local people on sources of further assistance in addressing personal welfare issues within Glasgow.

Positively UK (1,000)

Positivity UK are EU nationals living in Boston, a port town on the east coast of England where latent hostility toward old and new migrant arrivals has burst into the open since the Brexit vote, where 76% of local people voted to leave the EU. They came together to counter EDL and Britain First marches, and increasing racist and xenophobic attacks. They aim to resist discrimination by peaceful means, like rallies, demos and solidarity with people in Boston who stand against the latest attacks on the migrant community. Their activities include, organising marches; highlighting government non-compliance with impact assessments on immigration policy; conducting direct action against council offices; and working to bridge the divide in Boston, which they hope will be replicated in other UK cities.Reclaim Holloway, London (1,000)

Reclaim Holloway is grassroots coalition of individuals from groups including the Radical Housing Network, North London Sisters Uncut, Black Lives Matter, Empty Cages, Reclaim Justice Network, Islington Axe the Housing Act and others. They have come together to demand that that the site of the now closed Holloway Women’s Prison is used for social housing and community services, including a Women’s Building that is owned and not rented.

Against Borders for Children is a campaign to stop border controls encroaching into England’s schools. In particular we are campaigning for an end to nationality and country-of-birth data collection through the school census, which began in September 2016, and for an end to the sharing of pupil data for immigration enforcement purposes which has been going on in secret since 2015

Manchester Migrant Solidarity is a collaboration between migrants and non-migrants on the basis of solidarity rather than charity. They are run solely by and for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants from different nationalities. Their activities include anti-deportation mobilisation, detention support, language support, campaigning for individual asylum cases, and organising workshops on asylum applications and campaigning strategies. They also collaborate with other groups on wider systemic issues, like challenging legislation, instigating policy changes, and campaigning to Shut Down Detention Centres.

No Prisons Manchester is a campaign to prevent the opening of a supersized-prison in Wigan, Greater Manchester; They hope that by organising against a concrete prison expansion project we can build resistance to the expansion of the prison system.

Disire is the disabled people’s organisation of disabled international residents. We are dedicated to champion the rights of all Deaf and disabled people – no matter where they were born or raised and how long they live in the UK.

The 35 Percent Campaign is a group of local residents, traders and others who have an interest in the regeneration of the Elephant & Castle. It was set up in response to the social cleansing of the Heygate estate and because new developments were failing to meet the Council’s minimum policy requirement of 35% affordable housing.

The Northern Police Monitoring Project is an independent, grassroots, collective that aims to respond to the multiple injustices committed through policing and over-policing in the Greater Manchester area.

The Unity Centre gives practical support and solidarity to all asylum seekers and other migrants in Scotland. They also support anyone detained in the UK’s Immigration Removal Detention Centres. Since it has opened they have helped over one hundred families and countless individuals to be released from immigration detention. If someone is detained they help contact their lawyer, friends and family, arrange for their belongings to be looked after, provide emotional support and encouragement, contact the press and media about their case and run emergency campaigns and protests to stop them being forcibly removed.

Round 6

On 1st October 2016, the following grants were agreed for our sixth round:

African Rainbow Family is run horizontally by its 60 LGBTIQ asylum seekers and refugees members with lived experiences of one form of persecution to the other based on their sexuality, gender identities, religion, race, ethnicity, disability and have experienced most horrendous violence in their countries of origin. They campaign against social injustice and challenge any UK immigration mistreatment of LGBT asylum seekers’ application process, as well as influencing government policies, campaigning on individual member’s asylum cases, offering practical support, organising rallies and other activities.

GAS is a non-hierarchical collective that creates and holds space for groups to direct their own movements. They have secured a 5-year lease in a large industrial unit with the intention to build a multi-purpose space. People from different backgrounds come together to complete the physical work, learn new skills and develop a real sense of belonging. GAS intends to have an info-shop, a cooking space, a wood-workshop, and a safe exercising space for self-defence. GAS aims to be accessible, child-friendly, warm, and multilingual. They believe that people with lived-experience of oppression should lead their work. They ensure that groups work together to make consensus decisions about what the space is used for.

Belfast Solidarity Centre/Just Books is run by a collective associated with the Belfast local of Solidarity Federation, an anarcho-syndicalist union in Ireland and Britain that promotes solidarity unionism. They encourage and facilitate those directly affected by oppression to engage in active resistance. They are open from Monday-Saturday from noon to 6pm, with additional activities in the evenings. They operate a bookshop, library, and drop-in centre. Evening events include Just learning seminars and discussions, film screenings, benefit gigs, and community meetings.

Manchester Migrant Solidarity is a collaboration between migrants and non-migrants on the basis of solidarity rather than charity. They are run solely by and for asylum seekers, refugees and migrants from different nationalities. Their activities include anti-deportation mobilisation, detention support, language support, campaigning for individual asylum cases, and organising workshops on asylum applications and campaigning strategies. They also collaborate with other groups on wider systemic issues, like challenging legislation, instigating policy changes, and campaigning to Shut Down Detention Centres.

Munya Barnet, London (£3,000)

Munya Barnet work to challenge the discriminatory practices of local and national government service providers, and tackle the social exclusion, media demonisation, and political marginalisation of Gypsy Roma Traveller people. They are led by a committee of members who directly experience the issues stemming from their social exclusion. Their daily activities include signposting local services, accompanying people to their appointments, building support networks to care for physical/mental wellbeing, and empowering GRT youth through long-term mentoring. They also campaign on broader issues, like GRT housing rights, the need for sites, social housing, community-specific health education, and greater awareness of domestic violence within the community.

Sisters Uncut are working to challenge austerity cuts to specialist services for women, and to raise awareness of violence and sexual violence against women. As a movement led by and for women, Sisters Uncut is organised into caucuses based on shared identity or experience, such as race, gender, class, sexuality, or an intersection of any identity. The overarching aim of each caucus is to provide solidarity and support to each other in order to engage in activism in a meaningful and safe way. Their activities include high-impact direct actions as a primary strategy, and regular participation in awareness raising events, workshops, and panel discussions. All of their decision making is based on consensus, and members with direct lived experience of issues have a leading input into the process.

Unity in Youth, Glasgow (£3,000)

Unity in Youth work to promote the rights of youth who are in the Asylum system or lack the correct documentation to go to University or College. As a group, they are involved in the fight against systemic discrimination that treats non-British people unequally, especially women and girls. They regularly organise public gatherings that facilitate group discussions and allow asylum seekers to get to know each other and ultimately organise protests together. All members are migrants themselves, and they collectively make their decisions as an organisation together.

We Will Rise is a group of migrants, refugees, asylum seekers and their allies who are campaigning for an end to the immigration detention system in Scotland, and the UK as a whole. Based in Glasgow, they campaign against not only the immigration system, but also the corporations that benefit from the detention industrial complex. We Will Rise has been part of a successful campaign to close the Dungavel Detention Centre, involving regular demonstrations, public meetings skillshares and visits to detainees. They are now heavily involved in organising against the proposed new centre, in Paisley, near Glasgow Airport.

PAC45 Foundation challenges the insidious racism that exists within British institutions and society as a whole. As an organisation of Black activists, they work to create spaces and opportunities for the Black community to comprehend, articulate and challenge the racist practices that lead to a life of exclusion in our so-called post-racial society. Through their community forums, consultations and an annual national conference, they aim to bring together individuals and groups who have the knowledge and expertise to organise the wider community to eradicate such issues. They are currently developing a Summer School for young activists to develop skills and experience in activism, political empowerment and economic leadership. In Manchester, they are actively mobilising the local community around the implications of devolution and the election of a new Mayor.

Founded by a group of workers in minimum wage, manual jobs, Workers Wild West aim to support the self-emancipation of all workers. They advocate self-organisation which does not exclude union membership, but does not rely on it. They run a drop-in service for self-education and support in case of problems with employers, landlords, visa agents, migration agencies, or the job centre. They also support workers defrauded by visa agents and temp agencies, and help migrants receive the benefits they are entitled to. Ultimately, they aim to establish a self-run working class-based solidarity network that relies on its own resources and direct action. They also publish a local activist newspaper, and distribute 2,000 copies in front of workplaces, job centres and local housing estates in areas where 70 to 80 per cent of the work-force are migrant workers.

Brighton Antifascists are a grassroots group who encourage mass direct action to confront racist/fascist activity in their area. They do not cooperate with any political party or the police, as they believe that the state tolerates or encourages fascist groups when it’s politically expedient. They are part of the South East Antifascist Regional group and also the nationwide Anitfascist network. They organise in a non-hierarchical way based on consensus in their weekly meetings. Many of their members have direct experience of racism, islamophobia, and fascism, and others have been targeted by Far Right groups simply by being antifascists. Regular activities include: counter demonstrations, mass direct action, antifacism workshops, site specific art installations, and fundraising activities. Every six months they also organise a full day event to bring people together to promote a more inclusive, empowering and diverse way of living life.

GATE Hertfordshire is a grassroots group fighting racism towards Gypsies and Travellers. Their work ranges from local advocacy to national campaigns. In particular they have identified a need for a dedicated website that can provide a safe place for Travellers to record racist incidents, and also monitor and demonstrate the scale of racism. Their activities include; working with the Independent advisory group for Hate crime at the Ministry of Justice; co-organising demonstrations against planning and housing laws; writing articles for Travellers Times; setting up residents’ associations; working to achieve safe standards on their sites. Decisions are made by their trustees, who are all community members from across Hertfordshire, which has some of the highest numbers of GRT in the country. They work closely with most related groups in the UK.

LGBT Unity Centre, Glasgow (£1,500)

LGBT Unity was founded by a group of LGBTQ asylum-seekers to empower and give emotional support to LGBTQ people affected by their immigration status. They fight against racist and homophobic discrimination, and help people to overcome obstacles in their asylum cases. They believe that those most affected must build collective power to challenge systems of oppression. They have over 60 members primarily consisting of people with lived experience, and together with allies they make decisions in their fortnightly meetings. This is the only safe space many of them have to openly organise. They are very much involved in the broader movement to end detention, and regularly attend each other’s court hearings, help each other on their cases, conduct direct action against raids, and attend solidarity trips to demonstrations outside detention centres like Yarlswood.

LCAP is a coalition of groups that work to ensure people are provided with the resources they need to lead a dignified life. They challenge the systemic injustices caused by council authorities who act as gatekeepers and fail to discharge their duties of care, particularly around housing and welfare. Their activities include; hosting weekly stalls and lunch clubs, ensuring that council employees follow the law, challenging benefits sanctions, leading city-wide campaigns, organising protests and eviction resistance, and conducting direct action against council authorities. LCAP is comprised of three groups primarily concerned with housing, and two groups primarily concerned with welfare. All decisions are reached by consensus, and their members primarily consist of people directly affected by welfare and housing issues.

Phoenix, Leicester (£1,500)

Phoenix are a collective of working class mental health survivors and counsellors that are working to end the abuse and injustices inherent in the Leicester Mental Health Services. Their aim is to provide mental health survivors with the tools they need to establish self-led groups that can help them fight for justice and equality, and gain ownership of their own destiny. Their members determine their work, and only those who are mental health survivors are able to vote in their decision making process. Their activities include; advocating for mental health survivors, providing information and emotional empowerment, attending mental health assessments, signposting food banks and other services, supporting appeals when benefits have been cut, lobbying local councillors and MPs, and helping to establish community-led self-help groups for mental health survivors.

Rebel Arts is an activist collective who use the arts (music, poetry, art, film, and performance) for creative resistance. They believe that access to adequate and affordable housing is a basic right, and that homes should be for people not for profit. They aim to highlight the housing crisis in Cambridge, and fight against the 102% national increase in street sleeping since the Tories took power in 2010. Their activities include direct action art installations outside homeless shelters and new housing developments, an activist community radio show, free fundraising gigs, performance events, art skill shares, guerilla/street art, feminist actions, solidarity stalls at festivals, and supporting campaigns locally and nationally. Rebel Arts works non-hierarchically, and their work is made and informed by people experiencing housing need and/or affected by the housing crisis.

Reclaim Justice Network is a collective of activists, trade unionists, practitioners, and researchers most directly affected by the Criminal Justice System. They recognise that the CJS exacerbates inequality and marginalisation at huge social and economic cost, and work together to radically reduce its size and scope, and build effective and socially just alternatives. Their activities include; hosting public events, organising demonstrations, providing blog posts, launching the ‘Reclaim Holloway’ campaign, and attending the annual G4S general meeting as shareholders in order to directly challenge the board on their reported human rights abuses. As a non-hierarchically group, their decisions are made by their steering group, and their activities are carried out by working groups focused on areas that have been agreed collectively.

Roots to Return were formed to challenge the UK Home Office’s racist policy of Out of Country Appeals to refused immigration applications. Their aim is to monitor this policy in action, so that the collated information can be used by human rights lawyers and academics to challenge the policy successfully. Their activities include supporting individuals and their families facing out of country appeals, helping individuals overcome barriers to submitting appeals once deported, and providing a platform for people to speak out and address the stigma of the policy They work to maintain contact with those who have been removed, and to support the families left behind who face eviction, loss of income, and increased involvement from social services. All members of Roots to Return must have either direct or lived experience of the policy to qualify as decision makers.

Sisters Uncut began in London to fight against government austerity cuts to domestic abuse services. They came to Bristol to help establish a local branch in response to the complete removal of specialised services for children affected by domestic abuse. They aim to ensure that local services are not only guaranteed but also improved to cope with ever increasing numbers of victims. Their main target is Bristol City Council and all other authorities responsible for domestic abuse services. Their intention is to use protests and direct action to force much-needed policy changes. As they are still in the initial step-up stage, their regular activities currently include weekly meetings, attending demonstrations and other events in Bristol, and distributing fliers and information about their cause. All decisions are made with the full consensus of the group, and many of their members have personal experience of domestic abuse or work within support services.

Sisters Uncut are working to challenge austerity cuts to specialist services for women, and to raise awareness of violence and sexual violence against women. The Glasgow affiliated group formed in 2016 in response to an overwhelming need for local support against cuts to life saving services. Their regular activities include; providing support and advice, working with other organisations, conducting research, identifying potential services facing cuts, and organising protests and other forms of direct action. They are currently planning action against the use of Azure cards by Tesco due to the dangers this has for women. As a group, their decisions are based on the outcome of their meetings and their research. Their policy is to take their lead from those affected, including survivors, service users, sector workers and all others who the group aims to support and protect.

Undercover Research Group is a small network of activist researchers who support the fight for justice of people who have been spied upon by undercover police in the UK. They work with campaigners to identify undercover officers who have infiltrated political activist groups since 1968. They aim to empower those targeted and amplify their voices to defend the right to protest against injustice. Their activities include; public events; interviewing activists; supporting groups who lack the capacity for this work; mapping police officers and undercover units; assessing FOI requests, minutes, conference announcements, police reports, etc; publishing their findings, context and opinions on their blog; working with mainstream media to reach a larger audience; maintaining a wiki-based website with profiles on undercovers, their superiors, the units and the networks linking them.

Western Sahara Campaign fight against neo-colonialism, violent capitalism, and UK financing of the four-decade Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara, which is the last colony in Africa. The indigenous Saharawi people suffer human rights abuses recognised by international human rights groups, but due to a media blockade it is one of the least known conflicts. Western Sahara Campaign have lobbied the UK government and complicit corporations over this issue for decades, and have successfully sought a judicial review for their case to referred to the Court of Justice of the EU. Their activities include; lobbying government, EU institutions, and the UN, and organising visits for Saharawi activists from the Occupied Territories to meet members of the national parliaments and corporations participating in the plunder of their homeland.

Post Referendum Watch, Rochdale (£1,480)

Post Referendum Watch is a radical grassroots group of EU immigrants from Rochdale who now find themselves unwelcome and threatened following Brexit, where 60% of local people voted to leave the EU. Their regular activities include; providing advice surgeries with immigration solicitors; organising regular meetings for the Rochdale migrant communities to reassure themselves and stand in solidarity; holding rallies of defiance against racist and xenophobic attacks; organising a Racism and Hate Crime Incident Reporting Hub that feeds into the Rochdale Police, and True Vision, the police-run site to combat hate crime; identifying sympathetic local groups; distributing leaflets in Rochdale city centre; supporting and encouraging people to report hate incidents against them or others. All of their members are EU nationals and they jointly make all decisions.

Positivity UK, Boston (£1,400)

Positivity UK are EU nationals living in Boston, a port town on the east coast of England where latent hostility toward old and new migrant arrivals has burst into the open since the Brexit vote, where 76% of local people voted to leave the EU. They came together to counter EDL and Britain First marches, and increasing racist and xenophobic attacks. They aim to resist discrimination by peaceful means, like rallies, demos and solidarity with people in Boston who stand against the latest attacks on the migrant community. Their activities include, organising marches; highlighting government non-compliance with impact assessments on immigration policy; conducting direct action against council offices; and working to bridge the divide in Boston, which they hope will be replicated in other UK cities.

Art Machine is a collective who ‘use the arts as a tool for social and political change.’ Their first project is a new play, Custody, which challenges the criminal justice system over the deaths of young Black men in police custody. The play was created in partnership with those who have direct experience of this issue. Their activities include; interviewing relatives of Black men who died through the actions of the police; working with victim’s families to guide the play’s development; securing space at the Theatre Royal Stratford East; raising funds to independently stage the play. They ultimately aim to tour throughout the UK, fuelling a national debate. Custody is led by Urbain Hayo, an actor, activist, and care worker. As a young Black man, Urbain lives in a daily state of tension with the police, and his main colleagues share his background and experiences.

Frack Free North West (FFNW) began in March 2016 in response to government licences being sold to spread fracking across North West England. Their concern is that decisions regarding Hydraulic Fracturing are no longer being democratically made. Despite fracking being rejected by Lancashire County Council in 2015, an appeal was launched by Cuadrilla (oil and Gas company) and the final decision will now be decided by the Secretary of State for Communities. FFNW aims to build solidarity and form strong links between Counties in the NW who face new PEDLs (Petroleum Exploration & Development Licence). Their decisions are collectively made, and their core members have all been opposing fracking for at least 3 years and have extensive knowledge of the issues.

Toyin Adeyinka, London (£1,000)

Toyin is an activist committed to challenging institutionalised racism in the mental health system by establishing WOC Health Matters as a group for Women of Colour to take control of the care systems they rely on. As a support worker in refuges and hostels, and a former patient in maternal and mental health services, she has lived-experience of under-representation throughout the system. Her regular activities include; direct involvement in her local campaign to save Lewisham hospital; weekly efforts to politicise the PTA at her son’s school; collaborating with radical groups to develop her group’s structure. WOC Health Matters will be a non-hierarchal group that encourages as many forms of input in the decision making process as possible.

WOTE is a collective of grassroots Indigenous, black, brown and diaspora groups building a movement that is acting in solidarity with oppressed communities in the Global South and Indigenous North. They also work to challenge the racism of other activist groups which for many years has actively side-lined and further oppressed their communities. Their regular activities include; fortnightly meetings to plan the direction of the group and organise actions; contributing to other activist events; delivering workshops; speaking on panels; supporting direct actions organised by other groups; building relationships with groups and communities in order to increase their reach and impact. All of their decisions are made by the black, brown, and/or Indigenous members of the group.

Sex Workers Breakfasts aims to provide an un-stigmatised, supportive face-to-face space for sex workers. They work to end the criminalisation of clients (which puts sex workers at risk) and achieve full decriminalisation for all sex workers. They also work to end police violence, the prison-industrial pipeline, and the trafficking, rape and sexual violence of all sex workers. Their activities include; meeting every week from 11am – 1pm to provide breakfast and a confidential, anonymous and autonomous space for sex workers. They also provide a safe space for sex workers to seek information and help, report violent incidents, and to receive solidarity and support from each other. The project is run by sex workers, and the main contact is an ex sex worker. As a group, the needs of the sex workers who arrive each week lead their work.

Larne House Visitors Group, Belfast (£700)

LHVG work to support detainees held at Larne House, N.Ireland’s only detention centre. They fight to highlight the inhumanity of detention and bring an end to the system. Their activities include; informing detainees about their rights; connecting them with lawyers and rights groups; securing access to their belongings and providing essentials like phone top-ups. LHVG also organise film screenings, discussion groups, and workshops to spread awareness and create space for resistance. They’ve hosted events at N.Ireland’s Human Rights Festival, Refugee Week, Belfast Film Festival, and the UK’s day of action against detention. Their decisions are made collectively, and their members are predominantly refugees. One of their co-founders was a Larne detainee who successfully challenged his removal.

Autism Rights are fighting against the “back-door eugenics” that causes people with Autistic Spectrum Disorders to die 30 years before the rest of the population. They are the only group in Scotland campaigning to end the inclusion of Learning Disabilities and ASD within the provisions of the Mental Health Act. Due to the passage of time, their membership now consists solely of parents of adults with ASD. Their activities include; campaigning for the rights of people on the autistic spectrum and their families; organising public consultations; pursuing direct communication with politicians and public agencies. They have recently achieved amendments to the 2015 Act, and forced the Scottish Government to set up a Review of the Act.

Childcare Collective, Glasgow (£500)

Childcare Collective are working towards challenging white supremacist patriarchal privileges that ensure that people socialised as women are the caregivers, and those socialised as men are the activists. To achieve this, they encourage men to do childcare, and provide childcare support for women to become more involved in activism. Their members are women, non-binary identifying, and trans-masculine folk. Their activities include providing free childcare at public & private meetings, at demos, events, and for people who need childcare on a more individual basis. They only provide support for self-organised groups who have lived experience of the immigration system, and who organise to change that system and to support each other.

cliniQ is an award-winning, unfunded, holistic, wellbeing service set up by the trans community for the trans community. They are run by a dedicated team of volunteer counsellors, psychotherapists, advocates, social workers and mentors, who happen to be members of the trans community. All decisions are made collectively by their membership. They offer clinical sexual health services via a partnership with 56 Dean Street, an NHS clinic in Central London. Whilst the NHS clinic itself is funded, the elements of cliniQ that make our service safe, and appropriate for trans people are provided by our professional volunteers. Their activities include; offering sensitive, inclusive and non-judgemental clinical sexual health services, and providing resilience strengthening community-level programmes.

Edinburgh Coalition Against Poverty (ECAP) is a group run and led by people in poverty, be they low paid workers, disabled people, or people on benefits. They combat poverty on the principle of solidarity and self-activity in communities and workplaces. They actively seek to encourage links between different sections of the working class, with practical activity and direct action against our economic system based on exploitation. ECAP regularly supports people with poverty related issues at regular drop-ins at the Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh. They provide benefit advice, and accompany people to assessments and interviews at Jobcentres, workfare providers or PIP and Work Capability evaluations. When the authorities fail to resolve issues, ECAP also holds pickets, protests and direct action in support of their members.

Elizabeth Tina Purcell, London (£500)

Elizabeth Tina Purcell is an activist and survivor of domestic violence who works with women from the traveller community who are or have been affected by similar abuse. Following massive local authority cuts and the disproportionate effect on travellers, she aims to empower women to stop domestic violence and educate younger women not to tolerate it. Through her work she has built relationships with the police, women’s refuge, and other support organisations. Her activities include weekly workshops, relationship mediation, careers advice, and public engagement within the traveller community. Elizabeth also uses music therapy to help people to relax and open up about what is happening to them.

Hands off Our Homes are working to end injustice in the housing system, where the wealthy own and control all of the resources needed for a decent and dignified life. Their activities include; supporting bedroom tax appeals and benefit applications; signposting legal support; organising public meetings; facilitating tenant activism; door-knocking and hosting stalls in low-income areas outside job-centres and housing offices; helping tenants to lobby local councillors and MPs; solidarity demonstrations outside the law courts where people are facing possession hearings. They’ve also produced a detailed report on the impact of the bedroom tax on Leeds social tenants, staged two city-centre demonstrations, and hosted a “regional housing summit” bringing together tenants, campaigners and housing professionals. Their work is guided by the needs of the people they support.

Keep East Lancashire Frack Free, Burnley (£500)

KELFE is fighting to keep East Lancashire frack-free. They work to challenge abuse of the democratic system by the government who continue to grant fracking licences despite widespread opposition. They also work to educate the public about the extremely damaging effect fracking will have not only on the environment, but on the health and wellbeing of people and animals within a fracking area. Through education and activism, they intend to empower their members and the public to take action in their own right by writing to their local MPs, councillors and the media to declare their opposition. Their activities include, organising public meetings; hosting street stalls; attending planning meetings and protests. Their decisions are taken democratically at group meetings, and their members all live within a potential fracking area and are therefore well aware of the impact it will have on their lives.

Next to Nowhere is a radical social centre created in and run by activists from the Merseyside area as part of efforts to bring about a fair, free and sustainable society – one without hierarchy, discrimination, or the exploitation of people, animals and the planet for profit. Their members come from a range of backgrounds – community activism, youth work, animal rights, anti-war, environmentalism, feminism and anarchism. Their regular activities include; managing a vegan kitchen space; running a weekly Saturday cafe and monthly Peoples Kitchen; hosting film screenings and fundraising gigs; organising activist meetings; offering space for other groups; providing free-to-use computers and wi-fi, plus a radical library. As a non-hierarchical group all decisions are reached through consensus. Anyone can become a member simply by volunteering and attending meetings.

Need Abortion Ireland aim to challenge the state in determining how, when and if women can access abortions in Ireland. Currently the legal system severely restricts access to abortion, and even when abortion is permitted, it is not done through WHO best practice guidelines. Their activities include; providing an evening text service 7 days a week; providing care-packages with comfort items for those who request them; assisting with accessing abortion pills from Women-Help. They are also developing a ‘Migrant network’ project which will create multi-lingual audio recordings detailing how to use our service. They are a non-hierarchal group, and each member has experiences of accessing abortion in Ireland and abroad. Their decision-making is based on mutual respect and consensus.

“No Prisons Manchester” is a campaign to prevent the opening of a “mega-prison” in Manchester following a government announcement. They hope that by organising against a concrete prison expansion project, they can help build resistance to the expansion of the prison industrial system and the exploitative use of prison labour in the UK. Their main activities include research and network-building, as the intended location of the planned mega-prison is still unknown. They also hold fortnightly public meetings and work closely with other anti-prison groups. Two of their members have family members in prison, and they actively encouraging others directly affected by prisons to participate. The group operates as an autonomous collective; tasks are assigned on a voluntary, self-organising basis and decisions are made using a consensus process.

Unity Sisters is a group of women going through the asylum system. They get together to create safe spaces for women to share their stories and experiences about the immigration system, and other issues such as domestic abuse, health inequalities, forced destitution, access to education, housing, and access to childcare. These issues form part of a xenophobic, racist and sexist system of oppression, which the group aims to help dismantle through their work. With regular meetings, film screenings, and outings, the group provides spaces for emotional support, as well as practical solidarity.

Round 5

On 23 January 2016 the following grants were agreed at our funding day:

The Focus E15 campaign was born in September 2013 when a group of young mothers were served eviction notices by East Thames Housing Association after Newham Council cut its funding to the Focus E15 hostel for young homeless people. This prompted the mothers to get organised and demand social housing, not social cleansing! In the year since its inception, the campaign has gone from strength to strength, with a weekly stall in Stratford, an occupation of Newham Council’s housing office, and a march of several hundred supporters to Newham Town Hall all contributing towards the mothers’ growing national profile.

Hammersmith and Fulham Coalition Against Cuts (HAFCAC) is a campaign group led by and for disabled and older people in the London borough of Hammersmith and Fulham. They were originally formed to challenge cuts that are marginalising communities and targeting the poorest and most disadvantaged members of society. By providing information and challenging the cuts they aim to help break the link between poverty and older and disabled people.

JENGbA is a grass roots campaign launched in 2010 by families wanting to highlight the abuse of the Joint Enterprise doctrine. They are currently supporting over 600 prisoners, men women and children, the youngest of which is 13 years of age. Almost 80% of JENGbA prisoners are from BME communities.

Manchester Migrant Solidarity (Manchester MiSol) is a self-help group set up as a convergence space for all migrants, including asylum seekers, offering practical and social activities for mutual support, empowerment and solidarity with non-migrants to build a powerful political voice against the systematic mistreatment of migrants in the UK.

The Unity Centre gives practical support and solidarity to all asylum seekers and other migrants in Scotland. They also support anyone detained in the UK’s Immigration Removal Detention Centres. Since it has opened they have helped over one hundred families and countless individuals to be released from immigration detention. If someone is detained they help contact their lawyer, friends and family, arrange for their belongings to be looked after, provide emotional support and encouragement, contact the press and media about their case and run emergency campaigns and protests to stop them being forcibly removed.

Defend the Right to Protest campaign against police brutality, kettling and the use of violence against those who have a right to protest. They campaign to defend all those protestors who have been arrested, bailed or charged and are fighting to clear their names.

Established in 2010 the 100 Mothers Movement is a community grassroots organization created in response to continuously seeing an ever expanding gap between the needs of disadvantaged Black women in the community and what was offered to empower them to be productive and contribute more to the wider community. Their aims are to instigate positive social change and be the necessary platform utilized by disadvantaged black women. They aim to be the mouthpiece for the voiceless concerning the issues experienced in the community regarding race and gender inequality.

4WardEver UK is a community collective providing news and information sharing services for their readers and members. Their purpose is to provide a one-stop-resource for case profiles, news and event details, useful resources, statistics, appeals, and more in relation to deaths and abuses whilst in custody; including the death penalty, other injustices and human rights abuses in the UK and internationally.

Africa Centre Rise! (£1,500)

Africa Centre Rise! is a radical, nationwide community development and activist collective. As grassroots campaigners from the African Diaspora in Britain, they came together to legally challenge the injustice (and lack of consultation) surrounding the sale and change of use of the Africa Centre in Covent Garden, London. Their aims are to expose the corruption and institutional racism that led to the sale of the Africa Centre, and to ensure that the African Diaspora in Britain receives full restitution under UK and International law. They also aim to empower people of African heritage to take similar radical action to address the historical question of reparatory justice that looms over our community today.

The Belfast Local of the Solidarity Federation first came together two and a half years ago and are working to establish an education, labour resource and solidarity centre in the city. A centre of this kind will offer practical solidarity and support to people as workers or claimants, or in struggles against racism, queerphobia, sectarianism, sexism and for a woman’s right to abortion.

CAME Women and Girls Development Organisation (CAWOGIDO), started in 2010 as a group of BAME women experiencing violence. They are dedicated to improving the independence of women/girls who have experienced sexual and domestic abuse. 1,000 members of their community have benefited indirectly through campaign and community outreach activities, 10 organisations members benefited from capacity building including 6 BAME organisations.

Community Monitoring Project (£1,500)

Community Monitoring Project (CMP) is an independent grassroots constituted community based group committed to supporting members of racialised and minoritised communities to challenge racist, discriminatory, disproportionate and oppressive practice. Their remit it is to advocate for members of racialised and minoritised communities to support challenges and complaints relating to misuse of statutory powers and practices by the statutory bodies and in particular misconduct, corruption, violence and human rights abuses perpetrated by the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), primarily, but not exclusively, in west London where they are based.

South London communities and groups are coming together to oppose police brutality and legal violence. LCAPSV’s aim is to support victims of police assault and to link them in a London-wide campaign. They will be monitoring police harassment of communities and people of colour in particular. LCAPSV has supported numerous people who have been beaten, abused, subjected to harassment and unlawful imprisonment. They offer help, support and solidarity to victims of police and state abuses of power, and can offer information to aid complaints and to get justice.

Transition Heathrow came together in March 1St, 2010 seeking to create an alternative to the hierarchical, environmentally destructive and oppressive injustices of the structures that fuel airport expansion in the Heathrow Villages. Their main project is Grow Heathrow, a squatted community food growing project on a site that was previously derelict. It is a community hub where they grow food, run workshops and support the local community with their campaign against Heathrow’s 3rd runway.

The Ubele Initiative is an African Diaspora social action focused organisation. Their main activities have focused on co-designing local grassroots strategies to create practical solutions in relation to the ownership of community buildings within the African heritage community. They also undertake wider community engagement, empowerment, campaigning and social change activities. Their underlying aims are to build on intergenerational leadership and social action processes in order to identify and address some of our most pressing social, economic and political concerns that their community faces.

Small grants were also awarded to the following groups in this round:

Association of Gypsies and Travellers Wales (£1,500)

The Association of Gypsies & Travellers in Wales is made up of a small number of Gypsies and Travellers acting together and was formed in February 2015. The Association was formed in response to concerns that a growing number of charities are claiming to speak on behalf of Gypsies & Travellers and raising money to do so with very little or no involvement from the communities that they claim to speak for. The main aim of the Association is to encourage Gypsies and Travellers to be more vocal and more active in the communities where they live.

The United Families and Friends Campaign (UFFC), is a coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, supports others in similar situations. Established in 1997 initially as a network of Black families, over recent years the group has expanded and now includes the families and friends of people from varied ethnicities who have also died in custody.

Smash IPP is a collective of anarchists and anti-authoritarians, who have chosen to stand against IPP. They aim to raise awareness of IPP and work towards the release of all persons in prison who have passed their original sentence. IPP is indeterminate sentence for public protection; this allows the court to add time onto an existing prison sentence and therefore pushing back the release date indefinitely. The IPP sentence was abolished in 2012, however, this was what not done retrospectively. This left more than 5000 people in jail for a non-existing law with no date of release.

Drifting hope group was established in January 2015 to address the plights of refugees crossing the border of Calais into the UK. The group has membership of 10 people who are immigrants and refugees from different nationalities. The aims of Drifting Hope is to provide practical and emotional support for refugees who are fleeing war, persecutions of all sorts and desperately crossing the Mediterranean Sea for safety in Europe.

London Women’s Voices (£800)

London Women’s Voices was constituted in June 2015, having formed via community singing-for-empowerment workshops. Their aim is to support the empowerment and emancipation of self-identifying women who are working for social justice. The work builds health, voice and community to build women’s power and resilience as they work to create social change in our families, communities, workplaces and on the streets. Many of the group use their voices to make protest more powerful and energising for all involved. They have supported the protest work of Movement for Justice, Black Dissidents, Latin American Women’s Aid, Focus E15, CADFA (supporting Palestinian youth and women).

Since the now previous Coalition Government began its campaign of austerity in 2010, cutting funding for essential public services with impunity, grassroots groups raised their collective voices and mobilised to oppose them. Sisters Uncut emerged from this context in 2014. They aim to break the palpable silence surrounding the fact that austerity measures have a disproportionate impact on women, and to fight the deliberate dismantling of the safety net of specialist support services for women fleeing domestic violence, through direct action. They are very clear in our position: these cuts are ideological, not necessary, and safety is a right not a privilege.

Right to Housing Action Project (£500)

RHAP is a small group of people in Belfast who are seeking to campaign for an end of enforced homelessness among ‘refused’ asylum seekers. The group first met in early July 2015.

Sex Worker Breakfasts (£500)

Sex Worker Breakfasts offer an “infoshop” –leaflets/signposting to other services: benefits, migration, asylum, housing/homelessness, anti-racism, anti-raids, police harassment, sexual/domestic violence support, LGBTQUIA support networks, counselling, other sex worker support projects, clinics and collectives. It is open to all those who identify as current sex workers.

African Rainbow Family(£500)African Rainbow Family (ARF) is a non-for-profit organisation that supports lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender intersexual and queer (LGBTIQ) people of African heritage. It was established in the wake of the toxic and draconian anti-gay laws, persecutions and environment which seek to criminalise LGBTIQs for the preference of whom they choose to love.

Framework Inclusion, Kate Belgrave and Johnny Void (£500)

A joint project run by Framework Inclusion UK, a member-led group run by disabled people, Kate Belgrave, an independent freelance journalist who writes interview-based stories about people directly affected by austerity cuts and Johnny Void, a leading social security journalist and blogger. The aim of the project is to resist new measures the Department of Work and Pensions plans to introduce and seek systematic change through collection and dissemination of evidence via their extensive networks.

Norfolk Disabled People Against Cuts (£500)

Norfolk Disabled People Against Cuts was formed in 2012 to campaign against the vicious attacks by the government since 2010 on the rights of disabled people under the so called austerity cuts.

Young Gypsy and Travellers Pembrokeshire (£500)

A group of Gypsies and Travellers set up to provide a place for young Gypsy & Travellers to come and access information on their rights, to socialise with other young Gypsy & Travellers and to engage and participate in wider Pembrokeshire life. They want to ensure that young Gypsy & Travellers have the right tools and information so that they can be a voice for their community and help foster a positive change in attitudes towards their community.

The Coal Action Network was founded in 2008 in response to the increasing number of opencast coal mine applications in the UK. Since then CAN has worked as a national organisation supporting communities fighting opencast coal mines. CAN works with communities which are based in the coal fields, the most active of which are in North East England, South Wales and Central Scotland.

The Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh (ACE) is a self-managed social resource centre. They’re open for groups or individuals to use who are trying to make a better society and improve their lives. ACE exists to support and encourage people to take more control of their lives. They believe in people co-operating as equals to create a shared world free from exploitation and work together in the spirit of mutual aid.

Action for Trans Health was set up in February 2014. Since then, they have grown to be the UK’s largest (and only) campaign for patient-worker control of trans healthcare; with established groups in Manchester and Leeds, as well as groups currently being set up in Liverpool and Brighton.

Round 4

A lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersexual support group for Africans living in the UK. It was established in the wake of the toxic and draconian anti-gay laws, persecutions and environment which seek to criminalise LGBTIs for the preference of whom they choose to love.

A convergence space for migrants and non-migrants, offering practical and social activities for mutual support, empowerment and solidarity. Including awareness raising, workshops, anti-deportation mobilisation and detention support.

A project created by and for sex workers which brings together sex workers, academics, activists, artists and allies to explore the diversity and contradictions of the sex industry. They want to give a voice to sex workers, whose lives are too often stereotyped and voices too often silenced. Their aim is to empower through workshops, debates, actions and art projects as well as fighting against criminalisation.

A coalition of those affected by deaths in police, prison and psychiatric custody, supporting others in similar situations. Established in 1997 initially as a network of black families, over recent years the group has expanded and now includes the families and friends of white people who have also died in state custody and institutions.

A group giving practical support and solidarity to all asylum seekers and other migrants in Scotland. They also support anyone detained in the UK’s Immigration Removal Detention Centres. Run completely by a collective of volunteers the Centre provides practical solidarity and support for asylum seekers especially when they face being locked up in detention centres or being forcibly removed.

A movement for choice and change in Ireland. They aim to promote broad national support for a referendum to repeal the 8th Amendment to the Constitution by the Irish Parliament; to push for the introduction of extensive abortion legislation by the Northern Ireland Assembly; and to ensure the health and rights of women in pregnancy are protected in line with international human rights standards.

A network that supports autonomous groups and individuals with information and experience to take collective action against the exploitation of coal. They aim to organise non-hierarchically and believe that direct action is an appropriate and justified response to the urgency of the climate crisis and the human and environmental costs of coal.

An independent grassroots solidarity organization focused primarily on the FTSE 250 British-Indian mining giant Vedanta Resources PLC. Foil Vedanta targets the company in London where it is registered, as well as linking with people’s movements where Vedanta is destroying lives and devastating the land in India, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Zambia, Liberia, South Africa and elsewhere.

Framework Inclusion UK (£1,500)

A space to carry out the growing demand for key policy, projects and research work, tackle the issues of the non challenging formal disabled peoples’ organisations, while gaining a new audience for the aims of challenging disabled peoples’ continued and worsening exclusion.

Generation Revolution (£1,500)

Two radical filmmakers producing a short documentary to showcase the activities of half a dozen groups led by young Black activists in London. By dissecting the nature of systemic discrimination faced by young Black people they hope to offer the insight and inspiration needed to resist the most pernicious effects of their condition.

A campaign established after the inquest jury’s verdict of “lawful killing” of Mark Duggan by the police, despite accepting that Mark was unarmed. Their aims include quashing the Inquest verdict of “lawful killing, to ensure officer V53 is suspended from all duties and does not return to active firearms duty and is held to account for his role in the killing of Mark Duggan.

A group of voluntary campaigners working to make the Metropolitan Police accountable to local communities for abuses of power; and bring an end to its culture of brutality and racial profiling including the racist use of Stop & Search.

An experimental co operative of disabled women who want a new way of sharing experiences, mutual support and relationships with different networks. As disabled women continue to struggle to have their voices heard in their own right, they would like to build a sisterhood, a circle of disabled women to discuss, share experiences and explore intersectional possibilities.

Grassroots group that has come together from a number of other concerned groups (dealing with e.g. poverty, mental health) in order to organise a World Homeless Action Day event and to reboot homeless campaigning in Cardiff.

A safe space to for sited and housed travellers and Romany women for employment, education and enlightenment. The plan is to open a flowershop/ coffee shop which will act as a hub for GRT women in the area to meet, learn and create together.

A grass roots campaign launched in 2010 by families wanting to highlight the abuse of the Joint Enterprise doctrine that results in the conviction of innocent people. They are currently supporting over 500 prisoners serving lengthy sentences for something they did not do, could not have foreseen, did not have the intention to do, and indeed in many cases tried to prevent from happening.

Phillippa Willitts (£1,000)

A project to produce a resource for women survivors of sexual violence, as well as for researchers and other interested parties, that comprehensively covers victim blaming and the intersections of disability, race, class, sexuality and gender identity.

An education project run by a collective of volunteer lawyers whose aims include educating and empowering the people of London about the law, particularly relating to the police’s ‘stop and search’, and ending the use of racial profiling by the police in the use of their ‘stop and search’ powers.

A collective of alternative city tours led by homeless people. The tours exists in cities around the world for homeless people to empower themselves, lift themselves out of poverty and destroy the stereotypes surrounding urban homelessness.

A web-based campaign which aims to promote access to emergency hormonal contraception, or ‘the morning after pill’ in Ireland, and to improve reproductive rights and well-being more broadly for those living in Ireland.

A family justice campaign set up after the death of Habib ‘Paps’ Ullah during a stop and search for drugs. They aim to get justice for his family but also work on wider issues of police harassment and brutality.

A campaign fighting-back against the planned debilitating cuts to services in the UK. Against this broad backdrop, they work specifically with HIV related issues. The campaign was initiated as a wild public live “Coming-out” performance in Glasgow in 2012.

A national, multi-ethnic grassroots network/alliance of activists, asylum seekers, refugees, community workers, trade unionists, and academics who have come together to campaign against forced deportation in Ireland, and the supporting system of direct provision for people seeking asylum.

Asylum Seeker Housing Project (£750)

New campaigning project set up to address the poor standard of housing provision and support provided to asylum seekers.

The REAL (Rights, Empowerment, Action and Lobbying) Network is a group of disabled human rights activists from across Northern Ireland. The mission of the REAL Network is to work together to ensure that the human rights of disabled people are given their full effect.

A group providing help, advise, translation and advocacy for the Roma community in Enfield, including general community support plus to campaigning for Romani human and civil rights and recognition of the history of the Romani people.

A network of groups actively engaged in growing food plants and supporting others to grow food, in healthy, sustainable ways. They are also not afraid of standing up and making some noise when their members, values or ways of working are being threatened.

Promoting ‘food democracy’ by reconnecting people to food and taking responsibility for it, ensuring control by and fairness among local producers, suppliers and consumers, and reducing food inequality.

Gathering food that would otherwise be wasted, cooking it and serving it for free in public to anyone and everyone who is hungry. Also aims to educate and engage with people about anti­-militarism, consumerism, exploitation, capitalism, domination, violence and poverty.

A group organising actions against state and institutional racism. They run social evenings, hold monthly public meetings, publish a journal and also challenge NGOs who aren’t asking for the same things that asylum seekers want.

A group of people on low incomes using direct action, publicity, community solidarity and other means to pressure letting agents and landlords to end exploitative rental practices, improve conditions for vulnerable tenants.

Round 3

In January 2014 we agreed the grants for our Round 3 of funding. Again we split the short-list of applicants into two:

Half received grants of up to £1,000 based on their initial 2-page applications;

The other half received grants up to £5,000 based on a 4-page application and discussing their projects at a final meeting with Edge members and other applicants.

A group of lesbian and bisexual refugees and asylum seeking women and their lesbian and bisexual European supporters in Greater Manchester. They work to support each other, including visiting women in detention centres and to create awareness of who they are and why they have come to the UK. They challenge myths about LGBT people and about asylum seekers and refugees.

This mobile app is aimed at bringing fairness and transparency to the Stop and Search procedure carried out by UK Police. Stop and Search has been a controversial issue for decades because of the way it has been used. The app is aimed at changing the behaviour of the officers who do not carry out the procedure correctly, it informs people of their rights and allows them to upload their experience, including the officer’s ID number.

Network formed of people involved in various London-based groups, including the Latin American Workers’ Association (LAWAS), No Borders London, South London Anti-Fascists, Precarious Workers Brigade, The Prisma, Stop Deportation, South and North London SolFed, People’s Republic of Southwark, and unaffiliated individuals – migrants and British citizens, people with and without papers. They aim to equip people to defend themselves and others as much as possible in the face of immigration raids and street checks. Their long term aim is to build a culture of mutual aid and resistance to racism, state surveillance and control on our streets.

A network of independent groups providing legal and medics support to protestors around the country. They support protest actions and groups confronting an unjust system. In particular, they focus on those offering resistance and alternatives to attacks on living standards and social solidarity in the name of ‘austerity’, those who fight against injustices based on their race, gender, ability, religion or other characteristics, and those who undertake radical action for environmental protection and sustainable living.

An activist video collective set up to support inspiring political campaigns, social struggles and creative initiatives by publicising and sharing information. They do this through producing a bimonthly subscription DVD, posting videos, written reports and slideshows online and arranging public screenings throughout the country at colleges and social and community spaces. Reel News is completely independent and non- aligned, anti-capitalist in outlook, and in favour of mass collective action in the workplace and on the streets to change society for the better.

A network of diverse local community groups throughout the area, campaigning to defend and promote the interests of the 120,000 people of Tottenham, North London. The Council are promoting their 2012 ‘Plan for Tottenham’ which promotes corporate-led and large scale urban development; increased rents and unaffordable housing; and the loss of some independent local shops, homes, community facilities and small businesses. Together with local people Our Tottenham has pledged to take action to support each other, and to defend community facilities; stand up for decent and affordable housing for all; support small businesses; promote quality design and respect for heritage; improve the street environment; support youth voices, services and facilities; empower our communities.

Jembe Explosion (£1,500)

An all AfriKan group of Jembe players founded expressly to promote the traditional Jembe drum culture of the Mali Empire of West Africa for the holistic benefit primarily of people of Afrikan heritage. Their priority is to address the urgent need to reclaim their identity, their history and their traditions. They are dedicated to mobilising and empowering their people to be effective in the collective struggle against the on-going campaign of genocide, historical and environmental destruction and cultural and racial deionization, waged on an international scale by the privileged white elite regimes that dominate and exploit the worlds’ political and economic agendas.

UK branch of the Mauritius-based Chagos Refugees Group. The group is comprised of Chagossians in exile who live in the UK and non- Chagossians who support the campaign. The population of the Chagos Islands (2000 or so people) were forcibly removed from their homeland by the British government in the late sixties to make way for a US Naval base. CRG was formed in 1983 in order to take up the struggle of the Chagossian people for their right to return home. See Stealing a Nation, by John Pilger, which describes the struggle of the Chagossians.

Aiming to halt the harm and hate, damage and division caused by racism and fascism through promoting positive values: equality between all people; respect for difference, resistance to ‘official’, state or government definitions of ‘race’, ‘nation’, ‘immigrant’, ‘other’. They have played an important part in the development of a large community based opposition to the March for England’s arrival in Brighton as well as contributing to the wider anti-fascist movement by helping establish an Anti-Fascist Network.

A group of diverse individuals who have come together to open a permanent radical social centre for London, addressing the need for a sizeable, permanent and genuinely accessible home for our intersecting communities for what they do, beyond temporary squatted spaces or smaller meeting spaces. The space will be incorporated as a co-operatively owned not-for-profit enterprise with regular opening hours. It will be an active, autonomous member-run space able to accommodate live music and offering regular events, food, drink and meeting space at low or no cost.

A newly formed group aiming to build the foundations of an active prison-abolition movement in the UK. Most prison-related work is reformist, working for small changes that ultimately extend the life of the prison system. They aim to build literacy around the prison industrial complex and prison abolition in the UK. To inspire, skill share and support people to organise for prison abolition and to listen and work directly with affected communities and individuals harmed by the prison industrial complex in the UK.

A coalition of local groups who organise collectively around housing and welfare problems faced by their members. The majority of LCAP members are people on low incomes who are facing, or have experienced, problems with their benefits or housing. LCAP’s work mainly involves mutual support in the local groups, using tactics of “direct action casework” and local campaigning where appropriate.

A grassroots project aiming to halt expansion at Heathrow airport. The main project is Grow Heathrow, a squatted community food growing project on a site that was previously derelict. They cleared the site of 30 tonnes of rubbish and converted it into a community hub where they grow food, run workshops and support the local community with their campaign against Heathrow 3rd runway. People also live on site and we are off-grid, generating our own energy through wind and solar.

A new radical social centre in the East end of London, started in April 2013. It is an affordable space for groups in London to meet, have office space and to share resources and group practice. It is not just a space to be used or consumed, but is a collective attempt to organise and maintain infrastructure and resources for radical ideas and practices. A commons is different to private space (individually owned) and public space (state maintained). It is organised, maintained, and run by the people who use it.

Grants of up to £1,000

A group of young people from London from working class backgrounds, many of whom are also part of ethnic minority groups. They want to get rid of negative stereotypes of teenagers in the media, to ensure that they are not robbed of opportunities by austerity and tuition fees, and they want a fairer, more equal society, in which their opinions are respected and acted upon.

A local group working in Scotland and the UK to end the international arms trade. They raise awareness, campaign and take non-violent direct action to challenge the expansion of the arms trade, the presence of the arms trade in public spaces, such as universities, and other legitimisation of the arms trade.

Empowering Renewal UK (£1,000)

Affinity group of ecological and social justice activists who are working collectively on personal sustainability and burnout issues currently affecting them and other members of their group and networks. They are working to develop short ( 1 day) participatory gatherings, informative talks, and potentially writing, blogs and zines themed around sustainable activism and radical mental health in the UK.

Group set up three years ago for unemployed workers to self-organise around issues affecting benefit claimants. They educate people on a range of rights, through talking with people, leaflets and public workshops. Funds were specifically requested for organising a free summer university on the Isle of Wight to bring together working class activists from London and the Isle of Wight.

Amina was an asylum seeker held at a detention centre. The funds are to support her to make a documentary about it, including interviewing people’s experiences in detention and how it has affected their lives.

Calls from the Borders (£750)

A small group of people with and without citizenship who have been coming together since 2012 to imagine ways we can work to improve the experiences of, and debate around asylum and migration in Liverpool. They run events which are motivated by cultural and social representation and participation, and a writer’s group which came out of a desire to contribute to an informed debate and platforming diverse perspectives and experience.

A group of residents, local campaigners, housing activists and community organisations that seeks to support those affected by the cuts and reforms in the welfare benefits system and the social injustices these have created that threaten the vibrancy and infrastructure of the local community.

A collective of residents of Haringey working around housing issues. They demand the right to affordable and secure housing using collective, direct action. HHAG began to meet and campaign around the housing issues in 2011 and was founded by members of Haringey Solidarity Group.

a group of radical activist film-makers with a focus on work by and with people from migrant, black and refugee communities. Films have included Injustice, a feature length documentary about deaths in police custody and Who Polices The Police. They are currently working on The Resistance of Others, a follow up to Injustice.

A migrant-led environmental justice and social action non-profit based in Manchester. They seek to highlight and address environmental and social injustices faced by mining, quarrying, oil and gas, and other resource-rich communities in East Africa and beyond.

Romano Lav (£500)

A small Roma-led organisation that represents the Roma communities from Slovakia and the Czech Republic living in Govanhill, and in other areas of the City of Glasgow. Romano Lav aims to raise awareness of Roma culture, support the Roma communities to engage in a meaningful and inclusive way and to increase knowledge and understanding between the Roma and wider Glasgow communities.

Enables people to create and collate video: they create shows to put news in context, and collate the best social change video from around the world. If you watch any of visionOntv’s 5 main channels, you have a completely different view of the world than provided by the mainstream media – films full of ideas and actions for combating injustice. Their purpose is to get activist films made and seen, and more widely to get activist projects better linked with each other. They also aim to set up off-grid, sustainable power for activist media at protest sites.

WOW Petition is a group of disabled people who came together via twitter, which enabled them to gain a voice and make a stand against recent welfare changes. They aim to raise awareness of their plight and the plight of the many sick, disabled people and carers in the UK who are living in fear. They are calling for a cumulative impact assessment of all the changes to support for sick, disabled people and their carers and an Independent Committee based Inquiry into welfare reform.

Filipino Domestic Workers’ Association (£500)

A grassroots self­help group set up by migrant domestic workers majority of whom are women, to take action against the removal of rights of migrant domestic workers to be treated as workers, with same employment rights as other workers in the UK and to be able to live with dignity and respect.

Europe Roma Network (£500)

A newly established campaigning group set up with the aim of acting as a network of advocates for Roma in the UK and Europe to challenge hatred, oppression, discrimination and prejudice towards Roma communities and individuals in all its forms.

A community group for Black Minority Ethnic (BME) Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Queer (LGBTQ) people living and working in Greater Manchester, started by four BME LGBTQ women who recognised that there were no community groups or professional services that catered specifically to the needs of BME LGBTQ people living in Greater Manchester.

Black Triangle Campaign is run by and for disabled people and campaigns against government welfare reform, work capability assessments, compulsory workfare, privatisation of the welfare state and all disability cuts. They organise and take part in demonstrations and petitions as well working with doctors to put forward motions to the British Medical Association and pursuing legal avenues to challenge welfare reform and protect disabled people. They fight the myths about welfare claimants being malingerers.

Round 2

The following groups in Ireland, Scotland, Wales and England received grants of £500 – £3,000 in July 2013 to challenge injustices facing migrants and refugees, working class communities, disabled people, women, travellers, Black communities and others. Grants also went to environmental groups and those working to challenge the systems of power that affect us all.

Thirty groups were short-listed; half of whom received grants of £1,000 or less. Edge members and the final applicants then met 20 July 2013 to decide together how £30,000 should be shared out amongst the final fifteen. Five groups received £3,000, with the remainder receiving £1,500.

Disabled People Against CutsDisabled People Against Cuts was founded and is led by disabled people to raise awareness of the impact of government cuts on disabled people and to challenge government policy on disability, which is eroding the human rights of disabled people in the UK. The campaign was set up in October 2010 and is founded based on the social model of disability and the principle of rights not charity. DPAC has successfully put disability politics at the heart of the anti-cuts agenda and helped the ‘mainstreaming’ of disability issues.

Tottenham Rights is a group of local and national community campaigners, anti-racist and civil rights activists resident or working in the locality. Tottenham Rights is a rich mix of different generations and a powerful combination of people (both men and women) from the Afro-Caribbean, African, Asian, Chinese, Turkish and Kurdish communities who have a track record of successful campaigning and transforming people’s lives. They use campaigning and advocacy models to challenge injustice and transform and empower people fighting for genuine equality.

IWGB is a small, new and independent trade union run by and for low paid workers in the most exploited sectors of the UK’s economy. All their members are migrant workers, especially cleaners, and the vast majority stem from Latin America, though they have a growing number of Africans and Eastern Europeans joining now. IWGB organises the abandoned and the betrayed, challenging capitalism’s dependence on low paid migrant workers who are often not even paid for the work they do, are racially insulted, physically assaulted, intimidated, threatened and humiliated.

Why Refugee Women is an organisation made up primarily of asylum-seeking and refugee women based in Yorkshire and the Humber. The group aims to empower and unite women refugees in fighting the injustice of the asylum-system and raising awareness about the challenges they face in their day-to-day lives. They work to challenge the injustice of the asylum system and ensure that all refugee and asylum-seeking women are treated with dignity and respect both by the UKBA and in their communities.

Black Triangle Campaign is run by and for disabled people and campaigns against government welfare reform, work capability assessments, compulsory workfare, privatisation of the welfare state and all disability cuts. They organise and take part in demonstrations and petitions as well working with doctors to put forward motions to the British Medical Association and pursuing legal avenues to challenge welfare reform and protect disabled people. They fight the myths about welfare claimants being malingerers.

Residents Action on Fylde FrackingRAFF was founded approximately 18 months ago and is led by a group of concerned residents of the Blackpool, Fylde, Preston and Wyre Boroughs who are seriously concerned about the exploration for shale gas currently taking place on the Fylde peninsular and the rest of Lancashire. RAFF was formed to raise awareness of, and fight against, the dangers of Shale Gas Extraction, which utilises the controversial process of fracturing or Fracking, and the possibility of the area and the rest of the country being severely damaged by the process.

Space HijackersThe Space Hijackers are a collective of anarchitects – artists and activists who use satire, intervention and situationism to upset concentrations of power and galvanise social change. Not a single-issue group, the Hijackers have turned their comedic screws on to the arms trade, urban regeneration, global warming, poverty, surveillance, policing, gender issues, governments, war and many other subjects you read about in the Guardian.

IFIR is a grassroots, democratic, campaigning organisation, established in 1993 by Iraqi and Kurdish refugees who fled from Saddam Hussein’s regime and the consequences of the first gulf war. IFIR currently has active members in the UK, Sweden, Finland, Germany, Switzerland, Canada, Turkey, Iran and Iraq. They work to defend the rights of Iraqi and Kurdish refugees and aim to stop the unjust and inhumane policies of forcible deportations to Iraq and the detention of Iraqi refugees, and support their integration into their new societies.

Shafted?!SHAFTED?! BUILDING THE HIV ARMY is a performance show touring the UK involving nothing less than a human cannonball! To celebrate the 25th anniversary of Aids Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) and reignite the necessity for grassroots mobilisation as infections rise and the welfare reforms to services threatened. Shafted?! is a campaign fighting-back against the planned debilitating cuts to services in the UK including a mentoring programme between HIV activist ‘elders’ and those new to the struggle. Shafted?! is loaded and aimed directly at UK Government’s cuts to HIV services, the rise in HIV transmission levels and the mainstream belief that HIV was resolved in the 90’s! Scripted and created by those living with HIV, is a ‘coming out’ project to expose the reality of what it means to live with HIV in 2013 and organise action against institutions behind the cuts. Get involved at shafted@theglassishalffull.co.uk

Feminist Webs is a movement of young women, older women and women youth workers of all ages who are campaigning to challenge sexism and develop a fairer world for young women and girls through liberatory youth work. They use a process of participation which involves supporting young women to explore new themes and ideas. This is supported by providing learning opportunities, mentoring and access to women who are role models across a variety of areas of feminist and civil rights activism.

Hands Off Our Homes is a growing Leeds based group campaigning to defend tenants’ rights to home security. They originally set up to oppose privatisation in the Little London area of Leeds and recently (Autumn 2012) set up again to oppose the Government’s welfare reforms that they view as an attack on rights to home. Of particular focus has been the Bedroom Tax, which will force many to move into the private rented sector or into poverty or even homelessness.

Quiet Riot

Quiet Riot is a disabled people led group. They do not use speech for communication, but they have a great deal to say. They are all special school survivors and require physical support and emotional support when pointing and typing. Some disabled people use the term neuro diverse. They have been meeting and campaigning as a group for the past three years for the Right to Communication in general and their right to use Facilitated Communication (FC) in particular.

Alliance for Choice BelfastAlliance for Choice Belfast publically campaigns for the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. AFC is totally volunteer run and at least 75% of their membership are women, who are from diverse backgrounds and all share one common aim: to end the draconian law dating from 1861 that means that abortion is highly restrictive. They have worked to increase awareness; campaigned for legislative change; complied and submitted evidence to official bodies, such as the United Nations.

Border ForumBorder Forum is a new group of activists, scholars, artists and migrants coming together to build a connection between practical solidarity work and direct action in the field of migration work. Border Forum has come together from the preparation for the Voices from the Borders boat tour, which is happening in August 2013. Border Forum aims to arrange an info tour that will contain a film and research materials of the boat tour. In the longer term, Border Forum aims to forge more accessible links between civil society, NGOs and activists working on migration.

CoResist harnesses participatory theatre, nature connection and direct action to explore and respond to a variety of issues relating to social and environmental justice. They use this model to empower communities of Bristol to examine the issues they face relating to societal and systemic abuses of humanity and environment; to inspire and arouse proactive responses and devise ways to empower them; and to work towards strengthening the connection we all have with the Earth in order to create the conditions for the desire to work to heal it.

Small grants

In Round 2 we introduced a new process to enable us to give out small grants of up to £1,000 slightly quicker.

Women Seeking Sanctuary Advocacy Group WalesWomen Seeking Sanctuary Advocacy Group Wales is a Cardiff-based group of migrant, asylum seeking and refugee women from all backgrounds who seek to create a self-led / help organisation to gain ownership of their destiny. The majority of members are still going through the asylum process in the UK, while some have been granted refugee status. They are a campaigning, advocacy and research group, which works with and for refugee women and their families in order to bring about change in the unjust refugee system and to enhance their ability to rebuild their lives.

Cathy McCormackCathy McCormack is a long-term campaigner who lives in Easterhouse, Glasgow, which is regarded as being the one of the poorest and most deprived working-class communities in the UK She became involved in her community’s struggle for justice back in 1982 and has been instrumental in several poverty, housing, health, and climate change high profile campaigns. During this time she has been invited all over the world to share the struggle and successes stories of our working class communities in the U.K. and to link up with other communities. She is widely known as a social commentator for the people and an inspiring speaker.

WOW PetitionWOW Petition is a group of disabled people who came together via twitter, which enabled them to gain a voice and make a stand against recent welfare changes. They aim to raise awareness of their plight and the plight of the many sick, disabled people and carers in the UK who are living in fear. They are calling for a cumulative impact assessment of all the changes to support for sick, disabled people and their carers and an Independent Committee based Inquiry into welfare reform.

Virtual MigrantsVirtual Migrants is a Manchester-based, migrant-led collective that has been campaigning to raise awareness of race, global inequality and migrant-justice issues since 1998. VM engages the public via visual, new media and performance practice which strongly resists the ‘pornography of suffering’ and ‘charity case’ depiction of migrant peoples. Their recent focus has been to intervene where dominant narratives of climate change exclude historical, imperial, class and racial contexts and to promote awareness of the growing demand for climate justice from underdeveloped/exploited countries and its relationship to lives and politics in countries such as the UK.

The Feminist LibraryThe Feminist Library is a large archive collection of Women’s Liberation Movement literature, dating mainly from the late 1960s to the present day. This vitally important collection is invaluable to anybody concerned with preserving radical history and culture. The Feminist Library has always worked hard to collect, share and promote the development of feminist consciousness, thought, and action, and to raise awareness of feminism. As well as providing space to read all things feminist in a clearly feminist space, they also provide cheap/free meeting space for various radical groups.

Luddites200Luddites200 was established to take the opportunity of the 200th anniversary of the Luddite uprisings to help develop a new politics of technology and encourage new activism. The mission of the group is to emphasise the importance of technology as a key driver of the capitalist system. A new politics of technology will be crucial in the transition to a sustainable and economically just society.

Fracking Free IrelandFracking Free Ireland is a network which aims to raise awareness of the threat of fracking in Ireland. The website acts as an information platform to inform and connect people, nationally and internationally and has developed not only to a huge resource of information but is also now a national website used by various groups. The Fracking Matters Newsletter, distributed on a regular basis, is up to 30 pages long and read by politicians, MEPS, and finds it way all over the world.

Coal Action ScotlandCoal Action Scotland has been campaigning against the coal industry in Scotland for over four years – this involves working in communities struggling against opencast coal mines and taking direct action against coal infrastructure. They are the only group in Scotland that works directly to support communities facing the prospect of, or living next to, opencast mines. In the last four years they’ve had a number of victories, as well as seeing the UK’s largest opencast operators – Scottish Coal and ATH Resources – go from profitable and dramatically expanding companies to financial collapse and massively reduced production.

Next to NowhereNext to Nowhere is a radical social centre built and run by activists from the Merseyside area. The social centre is run by a collective of volunteers on the principles of mutual aid and solidarity. Social centre volunteers come from a range of backgrounds: community activism, animal rights, anti-war, climate change, feminism, anarchism and more. Next to Nowhere has a vegan kitchen space, a vegan cafe open on Saturday afternoons, free-to-use computers and wi-fi, a library of radical books and they hold film nights, activist meetings & other events, and offer space for other groups to hold meetings and events.

Common CauseCommon Cause is a platform of Congolese women and Congolese women’s organisations in the U.K. This platform works to raise the voices of Congolese women at the international level, advocates for women’s rights, challenges Violence against Women and patriarchy as well as promotes the integration, the solidarity and the participation of Congolese women in the UK. They work with major women’s groups, African and Congolese organisations worldwide and in the UK.

Stable Way Residents AssociationStable Way Residents Association is a Tenant Residents Association (TRA) that has been campaigning for the rights of Irish Travellers in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea for the last 5 years. It was one of, if not the, first Irish Traveller Residents group in the UK to be constituted in 2008. Led by Irish Traveller families it aims to put the voice of Irish Travellers at the heart of decisions affecting them.

Glasgow Defence CampaignGlasgow Defence Campaign was set up by political activists who found that by campaigning to gather support for opposition to the cuts agenda they were targeted by Strathclyde Police for harassment and arrest. They use petitions, leaflets, their blog, meetings on the streets and interventions at political meetings and events to draw attention to the police harassment and arrests of activists.

Cardiff Migrant SolidarityCardiff Migrant Solidarity or ‘CMS Wales/Cymru’ aims to unite the asylum seeker and migrant communities in Cardiff, and across South Wales, with a view to combat the racist system of border controls and privilege that keep people without papers jobless, destitute and patronised, abused and even condemned to be sent to their deaths by the decision makers around them.

London Anarchist BookfairThe London Anarchist Bookfair started off with 5 or 6 anarchist publishers and stalls and now, 30 years later, involves over 110 stalls from anarchist, libertarian and non-hierarchically organised campaigning groups; over 60 meetings; three child and young people spaces; films; and a host of other activities. The fair aims to bring together anarchists and fellow travellers to meet and discuss issues that are relevant to us, to be a space where those whose only knowledge of “anarchism” is through the pages and screens of the mainstream press, can come and find out what we really mean by “anarchism” and “anarchist ways of working” and to meet and chat to people who believe in the theory and practice of it and of non-hierarchical organising.

Re-visionRe-vision is based in Liverpool and is a relatively new group of mental health survivors, service users and allies who have come together to promote understandings of the social, economic and political causes of mental distress. They are committed to challenging narrow biological understandings of mental health and services dominated by medication and contest and resist neo-liberal policy prescriptions for health and the economy, and gender and race oppression which underpins many people’s experience of mental ill health.

Round 1

Our first round of funding has come to a close, with £40,000 distributed between the groups below. £10,000 was distributed between 13 of the groups (small grants), the other 15 were allocated slightly larger grants by Edge members and applicants collectively at the grant-making meeting.

6 Rang (small grant) – a group of concerned Iranian lesbian individuals, who have come together to change and thereby struggle against the implicit and explicit homophobia present in Iranian society. They raise public awareness among the Iranian community of homosexual rights and issues and plan to organise an event in London to further the fight for the right to freedom of sexual orientation.

8 April Movement – a group of Roma and others who campaign against the worsening, unchecked rise of anti-Roma, anti-Traveller racism and violence. The campaign is centered around two coordinated events, the traditional Roma Nation Day 8 April demonstration and the commemoration on 2 August of the genocide against the Romani people which they link with present-day killings by neo-fascists and racists.

Alliance for Choice Derry(small grant) – an organisation that campaigns for the extension of the 1967 Abortion Act to Northern Ireland. Their work involves highlighting the tens of thousands of women from NI who have had abortions in England and elsewhere since 1967 – thereby exposing the hypocrisy of the politicians who say there is “no demand for abortion rights” in Northern Ireland.

Autonomous Centre of Edinburgh – a self-managed social resource centre open for groups or individuals to use who are trying to make a better society and improve their lives. They provide resources and meeting space for groups that organize non-hierarchically and are working to change society and aim to increase awareness of the root causes of serious problems facing the world and encourage grass-roots activity for meaningful change.

Ban the Burn (small grant) – an environmental project aiming to stop grouse-moor estates burning and draining blanket bogs. Based in Hebden Bridge the group hope to have a countrywide impact, significantly reducing the 3.7 million tonnes of CO2 emitted by damaged UK peatlands.

Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre – resource centre defending the unemployed and unwaged against working links and the attempts by the State to force people into low-paid unskilled work. The centre is used by the local Hollingdean community which uses their vegetable shop/co-op, computer facilities, free clothes etc but they are also a Brighton & Hove wide group for giving advice and campaigning. They fight for justice for and with the poor and oppressed.

Britain on Trial(small grant) – a collaborative series of pieces (articles, poem, illustrations and more) that aims to question and analyse unjust aspects of British society in these times of uncertainty. They aim to provide an alternative narrative to mainstream messages relating to issues of power, politics and social issues through a series of interactive events using an accessible format with the larger public who might not necessarily be engaged or politically aware of issues relating to social and environmental injustice. Britain on Trial is very much led by the most affected people, issues include discrimination, unemployment and sexism amongst others.

Coal Action Network(small grant) – supporting groups and individuals with information and experience to take collective action against the exploitation of coal which is a major cause of climate change. CAN formed in 2008 in response to the massive expansion of the UK’s coal industry. Although campaigns have been successful in stopping power stations being built, there are still plans for many opencast mines throughout the UK, and communities living next to existing ones still suffer their impacts daily.

Critical Education Project – a new group dedicated to building radical consciousness through education. At the heart of their work is the belief that systemic change requires the development of a radical political culture.

Disabled People Against Cuts – campaign founded and led by disabled people to raise awareness of the impact of government cuts on disabled people and to challenge government policy on disability which is eroding the human rights of disabled people in the UK. The campaign was set up in October 2010 and is founded on the core values including the social model of disability and the principle of rights not charity.

Fitwatch – began in 2007 as a response to the constant harassment and intrusive surveillance protesters received from Forward Intelligence Teams (FIT). Deploying a range of tactics, Fitwatch has worked to ensure FIT policing is on the agenda not only within activist circles, but also in the wider public through our media work. They work for the right to protest without intimidation and harassment.

Foil Vedanta– an independent grassroots campaigning organisation focused primarily on the British-Indian mining giant Vedanta. Foil Vedanta targets the company in London where it is registered as Vedanta has been exposed for corruption and illegal land acquisition destroying the lives of many livelihoods in the process. Foil Vedanta are always guided by the priorities and concerns of those directly affected by Vedanta’s activities and have direct connections to affected communities in Odisha in India as well as several in Africa.

Fuel Poverty Action – grassroots campaign group made up of people fed up with mammoth fuel bills, cold homes and climate crisis. Each winter, thousands of people die in the UK because they can’t afford to heat their homes. They campaign against poverty and corporate power and for energy democracy and climate justice.

Green and Black Cross – an entirely independent grassroots project set up in the spirit of mutual aid and solidarity to support autonomous social struggles within the UK. It’s a new project set up in November 2010 to provide legal support for protests against the governments wave of massive spending cuts.

JENGBA(small grant) – Joint Enterprise: Not Guilty by Association (JENGbA) is a grassroots campaign that was set up in September 2010 by families who have loved ones convicted under ‘joint enterprise’ law. Joint Enterprise means that anyone who is on the periphery of a crime, even just at the end of a phone, can be charged along with the principal and receive the same sentence. The law is being used sweepingly to target the working class and BME communities.

Let Freedom Ring!(small grant) – a training programme for transformative education and action which provides activists and educators with the tools, skills and methodology to mobilise and organise self-mobilised communities to fight for justice and equality. This team have come together due to the rising levels of inequality and injustice and the lack of work to support and empower the communities most directly affected to understand the root causes of these issues and to take action for themselves.

Migrant Artists Mutual Aid(small grant) – a network of people who come together to produce community cultural events that aim to promote cohesion and intercultural understanding while raising money for migrants in crisis. Funds are used to run campaigns to fight against deportation and for the right to asylum. The group are based in Liverpool and mainly led by migrant mothers.

Million Women Rise – work to end male violence against women and girls. The group was set up in 2005 by black women due to the lack of visibility of Black women’s voices in the predominantly white middle class feminist movements in the UK. They campaign and highlight issues of domestic violence, sexual violence and rape, forced marriage, ‘honour-based violence’, female genital mutilation, porn and prostitution, the media’s institutionalised objectification of women, racism, lesbian phobiaand many other forms of violence against women and girls.

One Voice Community Collective – group of people from African/African Caribbean backgrounds, based in West London, who have come together to address issues of racism, and discrimination faced by their community. They provide advocacy, emotional support, and information and guidance to members of racialised and minoritised communities confronting institutional racist, discriminatory and disproportionate practices and aim to set up an Afrikan led local police monitoring initiative as a way of holding local police accountable for racist acts and omissions.

Peace News Summer Camp – Published since 1936, Peace News is the UK’s only grassroots newspaper covering the full spectrum of peace and justice issues. This year’s summer camp has the theme of ‘taking a lead from the Global South’. The camp is an annual event for the radical and direct action-oriented peace movement, taking place every July. This year the camp is being organised by a group of black people.

Rossport Solidarity Camp(small grant) – At the invitation of the local community, the Rossport Solidarity Camp was set up in June 2005 on the route of the proposed Shell pipeline. The camp has progressed through a number of different locations and incarnations in the last 5 years and played a big role in supporting the local community in their fight against Shell. More info on that campaign can be found on the Shell to Sea website.

Squatters Action for Secure Homes(small grant) – lobbying and direct action campaign opposing the government’s attempts to criminalise squatting. SQUASH will continue to fight against this draconian and undemocratic legislation, fighting to repeal it and supporting those fighting it in courtrooms and on the streets. They are also expecting to have to take action against further legislative attacks on squatting.

Stop Deportation – the Stop Deportation network was formed by various campaign groups and individual activists to document, campaign and take action against mass deportation flights to countries such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Nigeria, Sri Lanka. The network have organised numerous blockades at detention centers to try to stop these deportations.

Stop G8(small grant) – a loose network of individuals and groups using a diversity of tactics to oppose the Summer 2013 G8 gathering in Northern Ireland. Beyond the summit, they aim to help re-build an anti-capitalist movement in the UK and beyond.

Stop the Arms Fair Coalition(small grant) – a coalition of groups and individuals campaigning to end government support for Defence and Security Equipment International (DSEi) which is – according to its organisers, Clarion Events – the biggest arms fair in the world. The four-day arms bazaar takes place every two years at the ExCel Centre in London’s Docklands. The next one is due to take place from 10-13 September, 2013. They say: no more bloody arms fairs in London or anywhere.

UK Uncut (small grant) – grassroots movement taking action to highlight alternatives to the government’s spending cuts. It began as a hash tag on twitter but is now responsible for over 1000 protests and occupations nationally across the UK.

Land Workers Alliance (was UK Via Campesina) – born out of the international Via Campesina movement which is a membership organisation of over 200 million peasant farmers across the world, the UK group are a newly created national alliance of peasants (people who work the land) that campaigns publicly on issues affecting small-scale food producers in the UK.

Unity Centre – offering friendly, practical solidarity and mutual aid to all asylum seekers, refugees and sans papiers. Part of the ‘No Borders Network’ they work to create a world with freedom of movement for all. Working with the asylum seeker community in Glasgow, they use radical methods of collective action, solidarity and non-hierarchical organizing to challenge the injustices faced by asylum seekers under the UK’s racist immigration system.